


Fever

by Blue_Sunshine



Series: The Desert Storm [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AgriCorps, EduCorps, ExploraCorps, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, How did i not tag this series as that before?, Jedi Service Corps, Jedi Temple, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), MediCorps, Mental Health Issues, Politics, Quarantine, Sickness, The Dark Side of the Force, WARNING: pandemic, Written before COVID, medical drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2020-12-23 17:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 54,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sunshine/pseuds/Blue_Sunshine
Summary: Rising from the ashes is a laudable thing. Burning, not so much.





	1. Chapter 1

Sian really hadn’t wanted to get caught.

Least of all by _him_.

She sucks in a deep breath, turning away from the private data terminal that dominated the central space of the office, and looks straight into sapphire blue eyes she’d been abruptly shuffled away from any time it looked like they might possibly wind up being introduced.

Which, frankly, had been annoying, and her master had been doing it this entire mission.

His smile is more sneering than charming, his silky black hair combed artfully back from perfect, fair skin, marked only by a round scar on one cheek. He looks very pleased to have caught her – and, by nature of where he is standing, to have trapped her in the room with him. Sian sees his cheek twitch, the tell before he starts talking, and beats him to the punch-

“So. You’re my brother padawan.” Sian puts out there, leaning a hip against the data terminal and crossing her arms casually, keeping her hands politely away from her lightsaber.

He scoffs. “You and I are nothing of the so-“

“You’re pretty.” Sian adds forwardly, because it’s striking, how _pretty_ he is. Even with Quinlan around, she expected someone Fallen to be…twisted by it. Someone who broke her master’s heart to seem stained by it, somehow.

“rt – _what_?” His scoff turns into a sharp, startled hiss, and Sian grins, flashing a little fang.

And that is how Sian Jeisel meets Xanatos Du Crion.

She very pleased about it.

He collects himself, eyes narrowed, posture shrewd and sharp. “Look, _kid_-“

A shrill beep interrupts him, her comm-link going off.

But not for a call. For an _emergency_.

A decade outcast from the Temple, and the look in his eyes tells her he remembers exactly what that sound is. A dark sort of eager curiosity lights his face, and Sian isn’t sure if she can move to receive the message. She hadn’t felt truly threatened, just a moment ago, but she does now, and she doesn’t want to take her eyes off of him.

He’d been playing nice, as Master Qui-Gon put it stiffly, all throughout the intercorporate mediations the Jedi were overseeing, making no moves with the Jedi around save little barbs and jabs peppered into every conversation, and otherwise treating them as if they weren’t worthy to be tread beneath his boot.

But she didn’t make the mistake of thinking he wasn’t dangerous. Wasn’t skilled and cunning.

He had been Master Qui-Gon’s padawan too, after all.

“Well?” He offers, leaning back against the doorway, waving a hand to prompt her to play the message, sapphire blue eyes glittering, all false concession and lazy charm.

Sian narrows her eyes and doesn’t budge, dropping her chin a little in defiant subborness.

Xanatos sighs, like she’s being unbearable, and pushes off the door. “Alright then, if you can’t be bothered with that…shall we discuss what a little jedi was doing, snooping through my offices?” He strides forward, a slow, lazy stalk if she ever saw one, and his shadow seems to fill the room, making it seem smaller, feel smaller, his presence pressing down on her shoulders, on her _mind_-

The shrill beeping doesn’t help, driving into her hindbrain, skittering across her nerves.

“Hello there.”

Sian can’t help but suck in a breath, a terrible rush of relief filling her at Master Naasade’s sudden appearance at the entrance to the room. Xanatos whirls quickly, more battle-reflex than businessman, and an icy smile lights his face.

“_Two_ snooping jedi.” Xanatos remarks loftily, but for all his disdainful bravado, Sian can tell he’s unsettled by the other man. To be fair, Master Naasade in his silks and armor is a _sight_. “Overstepping your authority a bit, aren’t you? After all, I’ve done nothing wrong, and this room is a private domain.”

Master Naasade’s smile is just as cold. “If that’s the story you want to spin.” He remarks, and then his gaze slides past Du Crion and onto Sian. He holds out a hand, prompting her to come to him.

Sian moves, a little embarrassed at having to be rescued, and jerks to a stop when a red blade snaps alive between her and Master Naasade. She growls as it comes dangerously close to singing her clothes, and Du Crion tuts. “Now that’s just rude.” He remarks. He turns the blade, bringing it closer to her face, casting a red glow between them that seemed to swallow up all other colors. Sian stiffens, that growl climbing back down her throat and turning into knots in her stomach as the heat of it swelters just under her chin. “We were just getting properly introduced. She is my sister padawan, after all. Or did you not know that?” He tosses the words in an oily drawl, flashing a smile that the holonet would swoon over. “Why, we’re practically _family_.”

There’s a look Master Naasade gets sometimes, all bitingly sharp analysis and hard, dispassionate calculation and it’s a _dangerous_ look. And just as quickly as it took over his face, it’s gone, and Master Naasade relaxes into a posture that’s looser, all canny confidence and easy grace. He steps forward, hands loose at his sides, and a glint in his gaze.

“You have a rather complicated history when it comes to family, _Xan_.” He says, all soft and _familiar_ and patronizing. “I’m not sure I’d trust you with a little sister.”

Du Crion stiffens, expression tightening with confusion and _affront_, and he doesn’t move as the Mandalorian Jedi strolls forward.

“Have we – do we know each other?” Du Crion inquires, head tilted inquisitively, making him seem younger, his blade inching away from Sian’s throat.

Master Naasade lays a hand on Sian’s shoulder, brushing the lightsaber aside with a push of the Force and an easy turn of his hand, and leans into Du Crion’s personal space. Really leans in. Xanatos is slightly taller, but they’re near the same age, Sian thinks, as Du Crion turns his head up at the Jedi’s closeness, unwittingly revealing his throat, but humans don’t think much on gestures like that, not the way devaronians and togruta do. The way Master Naasade clearly does, if that twitch of a smirk at the gesture is anything to go by.

“From a certain point of view.” Master Naasade murmurs out, lifting a hand and pushing the darksider back a step, finally getting the blade fully out of Sian’s way. “But not in this life.” He adds wryly.

Xanatos seethes as Master Naasade draws Sian back, placing himself between them, and roughly flicks Master Naasade’s touch of his expensive clothes.

Sian glances between them, irrepresably curious. From a certain point of view is a phrase shes familiar with – her master uses it a lot. But she wonders, sometimes, about Master Naasade, if he ever means that literally. Most Jedi assume hi past was erased as a Shadow, but Sian often thinks it’s something trickier than that. That maybe Ben Naasade wasn’t just scrubbed from record, that maybe he actually was someone else once, before being Ben Naasade.

Someone that maybe the people who knew him before no longer recognize.

It’s a melancholy thought, for a _what if_.

“Jedi nonsense at it’s finest.” Du Crion drawls disdainfully.

“Does it comfort you to spit the word out like that?” Master Naasade asks. “To hate your own legacy so much?”

“I am no jedi.” Xanatos seethes.

“No.” Master Naasade confirms. “But you could have been. Your choices weren’t fair, but you made them.”

“I think you’re being far too forward.” Du Crion drawls icily.

“I think I’m being honest.” Master Ben retorts. “But let me elaborate – this isn’t pity. Your choices weren’t fair, but you made them freely, and you _keep making them_, Xan.” His tone is durasteel and contempt.

“Stop calling me that.” Xanatos spits, body rigid, ready to fight. His blade still lit. “And I’ve no idea what you think you’re referencing.” He remarks curtly, the shrewd façade of the businessman overtaking his expression.

“If you prefer.” The jedi demurs, and the concession is almost worse than a petty refusal. “And let’s not pretend you or I are ignorant, shall we?”

“I think I’d _prefer_ you to leave now.” Du Crion mutters, studying the other man with a sort of irritated intrigue. His lightsaber winks out with a hiss, and he gestures them both towards the door, the Force thick with warning.

Master Naasade tips his head, and Sian takes a breath. “Bye, big brother.” She says, glowering at the ex-padawan. “See you next time.”

Xanatos scowls at her, looking disgruntled by her persistence. Master Naasade glances between the two of them, an odd expression on his face, and then twitches a brow, as if resigning himself to something.

Sian thinks she finally gets what her master means now, about everyone’s constant frustration with Master Naasade; There’s too much about him of interest, and he offers too few answers.

But there was something, she thinks, as she lopes out the door, about that interaction.

Master Naasade definitely _knew_ Xantatos Du Crion.

But Xanatos Du Crion definitely did _not_ know him.

_Not in this life_. What did that even _mean_?

“That was foolish.” Master Naasade remarks, following her as they get away from the office. “Tell me Qui-Gon didn’t put you up to that.”

“No.” Sian admits, thinking it strange how Master Ben – and in private he was Master Ben – called her master by his given name in conversations with her, but was far more reserved in the man’s actual company. “I was just…curious.”

“About your master’s old padawan.” He states, with complete understanding. “You won’t find what you want to find.” He adds. “And you shouldn’t worry about – you aren’t like him.” He assures her.

“I _know_ I’m not like him.” Sian replies flatly.

Master Ben twitches a brow, a tick of self-reproach. “Right.”

Her comm beeps again, another shrill reminder, and Sian tenses, coming to a stop and glancing up at Master Ben. His expression tightens, and he nods for her to receive the message.

The symbol of the Order pops up on holo-call, and it’s Chief Healer Che’s voice.

“_Do not return to the Temple_ –“

Sian jumps, startled, at the sudden jagged broiling _panic_ that rips around Master Ben in the Force, and misses the rest of the message as she grabs his hand and moves him against the wall, having gone nearly grey under his beard.

“Master Ben?” Sian calls his name. “_Master_!”

The message loops around again, repeating, as Sian tries to Force calm for _both_ of them, pushing him back against the wall when he tries to stagger away, the action jerky and unfocused.

“_Do not return to the Temple of Coruscant. This is a Medical Directive, Effective Immediately. We are under Quarantine_.”

The message seems to penetrate, and he claws and scrapes the panic back in and buries it deep, and when he’s done, it’s like it was never there at all, and that – to Sian, that’s _worse_.

Eschewing decorum, she rocks forward and wraps her arms around him, squeezing a hug. He stands there, like a frozen lump, and she just tries to offer him something warm to hold onto, something grounding. Eventually, his hands move up to her shoulders, returning the embrace briefly before carefully pulling her away.

All of Obi-Wan’s friends know his master struggles, at times, and all of them try their best to help.

“I’m – handling it.” He replies with a rough sigh. “That was – a bad…” He stops talking, shakes his head, and Obi-Wan comes running around the corner, Master Qui-Gon not far behind him.

Obi-Wan doesn’t say anything, just comes up to his master’s side, laying a hand on his arm and keeping it there, watching the older man in sharp concern.

“_Do not return to the Temple of Coruscant. This is a Medical Directive, Effective Immediately. We are under Quarantine_.”

“So what do we do when we’ve finished out mission?” Sian asks, after a minute of them all standing their looking uncertain at each other, Master Naasade frowning at the wall.

“I’m afraid this mission _is_ finished. We’ve been recalled.” Master Ben says, gathering himself – or, well, letting Obi-Wan do that for him, judging by the back and forth between them Sian can sense in the Force, and the aggressive push of _steady-calm-secure-not alone_ he was putting off. Sian envies Obi-Wan a little. She can never project that clearly, or with that kind of emotional focus. But then, she supposes, she wasn’t taking the same lessons he was. “I received this message _before_ the alert went out.” He says, and lifts his wrist - and that was _neat_, the comm-link being embedded in his vambrace. Convenient.

He plays a message back for them.

“_Ignore that, Ben. We need _you_ here_.”

“That’s Healer Ni Hiella.” He explains, when Master Qui-Gon looks confused. “Needless to say I was confused.”

Sian eyes Obi-Wan, and Master Qui-Gon, and wonders if they are really going to gloss over the fact that Master Ben just most certainly had an _episode_ right then.

“What would the Healers need with you?” Master Qui-Gon inquires.

Obi-Wan makes a disgruntled noise, and Master Ben grimaces wryly. “I have a rather unique medical profile. My previous travels have left me with a rather… progressive immune system. They’ve been able to make use of it before.”

“Progressive immune system?” Obi-Wan repeats. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Shush.” Master Ben mutters.

Sian shares a look with her master. Honestly, the _both_ of them.


	2. Chapter 2

“As much as we might wish it, starting early does not translate to finishing early.” Plo Koon comments, entering the council chamber to find himself preceeded by young Master Windu.

Master Windu gives him a pointed look, and Plo takes it in stride. He has the experience to know how he should portion his time. Windu himself was still young enough to often overestimate his, to put in too much to the more exhausting matters, and too little to those which made them bearable.

“Believe me, I know.” Windu mutters, aggrieved. “Master Yoda is unwell. I’m looking through his items on the agenda to see what can be addressed without his input.”

“Is it serious?” Plo inquires, a habitual worry over the elders health, given his advanced age. It would be a great sorrow for the living, the day he passed on, and Plo wished that day as far off as possible.

“He’d go to the Halls if it were. I think it’s exhaustion, more than anything else. You’ve noticed he’s been…” The young master hesitates, and the line between colleagues and elders flickers over his face.

“Melancholy.” Plo nods. It’s not something he himself is unfamiliar with, but Master Yoda has taken the recent revelations hard, engaging some days and other days retreating, moody and reserved.

The Congregation continued to draw out, but concessions had to be made to continue the internal operations of the Temple, such as maintaining Council Meetings, allowing certain padawans to resume more regular training, and putting classes and lesson plans back on track after so many absences and side-tracked lectures.

So many issues had come to light, so many solutions proposed to be considered and evaluated. It may take them years to establish any certain path forward, and in the meantime, they must still continue to do their duty.

“He’s hardly the only one.” Plo remarks. “Though his grandmaster seems to have taken that in hand.”

The way Master Fay and Master Yoda interacted was the topic of much scandal in Temple gossip, but it was lighthearted and caring, for all the fuss and irritation they exaggerated between them, and Plo thought it did Yoda good, to be treated as a student again, to be allowed his mistakes and to not have every answer, to have someone older and wiser to lean on.

Though many were still skeptical as to the ‘older’ and ‘wiser’ status of the Master in question.

Master Windu’s expression turns, and Plo chuckles in good humor. The young man was too serious and too worried by half for his age.

“I think-“

There is a low, mechanical tone of warning, and the door seals shut, whining as the magnetic locks engage.

“_Please be advised: the Temple is now under quarantine. Do not attempt to leave your area. Please be advised: the Temple is now under quarantine_.”

~*~

Quinlan idly kicks Aayla’s ankle, because she’s been kicking his knee, and she stick her tongue out at him. Lyra, her new best friend, snorts into her meilooran juice. Quinlan flashes a grin, the one all the younglings light up at, and tries to ignore the itching under his skin.

“Padawan Vos?”

Quinlan tenses, slurps the rest of his noodles, and then turns around, prepared to be hostile. He’s aware he’s alone in the small dining hall with the younglings, alright? Master Se just left for _five minutes_. He can last five minutes without supervision and not go on a Dark power trip.

Even if today has been…he just feels _off_. He can’t quite place it, but Master Se had asked for his assistance, saying the creche was shorthanded the last few days, so he’d mustered himself and said yes.

He has to prove he can function. He has to be _better_, or they aren’t ever going to let him be a jedi again.

He deflates a little on seeing his opposition. Padawan Riis has a surprisingly deep voice for his age, but then, the twelve-year old is a tholotian, and they tended to have a lower vocal register. The younger padawan has been serving a stint in the creche while his own Master was on mission, and he was actually…._great_, at it. Future Master of the Creche if Quinlan ever saw one. At that age, Quinlan had avoided babies like the plague. He’d found their touch-memories disorienting and incoherent. These days, blunt raw emotions accompanied by blurry washes of color-sound? They were pretty relaxing.

“What is it?” Quinlan inquires, softening his voice for the small clan of nervous toddlers trailing behind the boy, all connected by soft, brightly colored tethers.

“Er… Master Goozma went to the Halls earlier to pick up some medicine, but he hasn’t come back. It’s been awhile and everyone is hungry.” Ris says, like he expects Quinlan to scold him and send the clan back up the tower. “Can you supervise them while I go feed the babies? I couldn’t find any other-“

The twelve-year old startles when the door whirs shut with a pneumonic hiss, and Quinlan feels something in his bones shift when the walls hum slightly, mechanics in the walls engaging with dull clicking thuds. His ears pop.

“_Please be advised: the Temple is now under quarantine. Do not attempt to leave your area. Please be advised: the Temple is now under quarantine_.”

“Fripping hell, you have _got_ to be kidding me.” Quinlan growls, as the younglings start to fuss and whine, uncertain and worried about what’s happening, a few of them upset by the change in air pressure. The creche, Quinlan understood, isolated itself in events like this, and operated completely independent of the rest of the Temple. Part of that isolation system was the secondary atmospherics, which increased the air pressure in the tower – allowing air to go out, but not come in, preventing potential airborne hazards from getting inside.

“Oh no!” Padawan Riis darts to the door.

“Hey, don’t panic!” Quinlan snaps, gritting his teeth. The tholotian gapes at him, eyes wide, and points up. Quinlan scowls, because what the kark was that supposed to- oh, oh kriffing hells. The _babies_.

“Okay, panic a _little_.”

~*~

Komari Vosa is laughing. It’s a little ragged, but she _is_ laughing.

Siri just wishes it were under vastly different circumstances. Sian had introduced her to the returned padawan, who was recovering in more ways than one, though from _what_, no one would say. She was fidgety and emotionally absent sometimes, but other times she was oddly funny and very engaging, and Siri rather liked her. She hadn’t quite liked the idea of taking her to the Senate, not with how awful it was, and given her condition, but Master Adi hadn’t wasted a moment on bringing Master Dooku into the fold of the Tempe’s political affairs, and where the Master went…the padawan followed.

Thankfully, Master Adi had curtly suggested that Siri and Komari take lunch somewhere, instead of following them into the Senate. Siri disliked letting Master Adi go in alone – Master Dooku at her side or not – but she disliked the idea of putting Padawan Vosa inside those walls even less. She seemed…frail. Her presence in the Force was tightly coiled and often tense, and the shadows under her washed-out blue eyes never seemed to go away. Sian was determined to be friends with the older Padawan, and Siri, well, she’d like to try, at least.

She’d seemed a little more at ease, out in the sun. She’d even picked the restaurant. It was a little more expensive than Siri was quite comfortable with, especially given how many financial reports she’d helped Master Sifo-Dyas sift through and reconfigure recently, but Komari had her own money, and she’d insisted Siri let her spend it.

It had been…fun, actually. Komari had convinced Siri to play a game of making up stories about the other clients in the restaurant, the more torrid and dramatic the better – definitely a game Sian would love, and they’d shared what had to be the best dessert Siri’s ever had in her life.

But the older padawan had tired not long after eating – and she hadn’t actually eaten all that much, Siri noticed, because that was something Siri always noticed, since Rohst – and she’d started to drift in her own head as they went to wait for their Master’s.

But she’s laughing now, and it’s awful.

“Looks like the Temple doesn’t want me back after all, Master.” She snorts, tugging on an implacable Master Dooku’s sleeve, and he scowls severely at the younger woman.

“We’re really locked out.” Siri says, asks, for clarities sake.

“The Temple is under quarantine.” Master Adi replies tightly. “We’re _really_ locked out.”

Siri glares up at the holographic banner warning them away from the door, turns around, and drops down to sit on the steps, fuming.

This was _not_ how she had seen her day going.


	3. Chapter 3

The light in the Halls of Healing had turned deep blue with the UV emergency lights. A breeze rustles sheets and robes and stray scrubs of flimsy, the air being constantly drawn in and pushed out the filters, and humming with the microsonic scrubbers. It was overkill and they weren’t sure it was enough.

“How do we know we aren’t infected?”

“We don’t.” Chief Healer Che replies grimly, donning a pale blue skinsuit which almost made her look naked, given her own natural tones. A slightly mortifying experience Essja had to share, given his pantoran skin. But they were too…grim, at the moment, to feel mortified, or even annoyed about it. The moment they had realized what they had on their hands, the Healers had engaged quarantine measures, finished whatever care was necessary for their current patients, engaged the isolation panels which would section off the patients completely, and then reported to the clean room for preventative decontamination.

The only problem being that the scanners they had were incapable of identifying and isolating the virus that had overtaken the Temple. So, they were scanned and screened and steamed and scrubbed, and all they could do was hope it was enough.

“If we are, the hoods will prevent us from spreading it. We will continue to do our work.” Healer Ni Hiella remarks, assisting Healer Che in donning the laser hood and protective gloves of her suit, which would self-seal, preventing any potential transfer between her and anyone else. When she’s done, Healer Che returns the favor.

“How are we going to manage the quarantine if we can’t provide accurate detection?” Padawan Leeoli asks, her bass voice perfectly clear through the inter-suit comm system. “We won’t be able to clear sectors – we won’t even be able to clear patients.”

“We’ll continue studying those displaying advanced symptoms. Every virus has its markers. We will find commonality, and we will proceed as you have been trained to do.” Healer Che says with certainty. Essja tries not to look at Padawan Iune, who is only just fourteen, and barely trained at all.

This was a disaster none of them were really prepared for. It didn’t make _sense_.

A week ago there had been a marked increase in reports of headaches – nothing too unusual, as Jedi were _prone_ to headaches. Increased photo and tactile sensitivity, general fatigue. The Halls had been bracing for another bout of Bantha Flu. Two days ago many of those same patients had started coming back reporting mood swings, muscle tremors, lack of appetite, insomnia, progressing to migraines and near sensory overload.

They’d taken blood samples, run tests, tried every scanner – updated a few data libraries and tried the scanners again. All they got back was vitamin deficiency and increased neural activity. No unregistered DNA or RNA to identify.

When the fevers started, they tried all the tests and scanners again, and more patients just kept coming, some with mild symptoms, other far worse off than they should have been for just _now_ going to the Halls. With the Force, they could tell something was wrong, but you can’t actually cure a virus through the Force. You can only help the body fight it. _If_ it was a virus.

They were assuming it was, based on epidemiology and progression of symptoms and outbreak, if nothing else, because they _had_ nothing else to go on.

But the antivirals they tried, because they had to try _something_, didn’t make a dent.

Last night, they saw their first seizure.

At half past the lunch bell, one patient went into a coma and two more had to be medically sedated.

It was spreading too quickly, deteriorating too rapidly. They’d sealed the Halls, set the beacon, and activated the Temple’s quarantine protocol.

“Padawan Iune, I’m assigning you to assist Padawan Leeoli. The two of you are to be inseparable throughout this emergency, do I make myself clear?”

The youngest Padawan nods nervously.

“Padawan Leeoli,” Healer Che continues. “I need you to monitor the Medical Advisory. Jedi in the field may be infected; advise them on early symptoms and find the nearest appropriate medical facility to direct them to. If they have cause to believe they’re carriers, they need to be isolated. Furthermore, try and get me a direct comm line to the Council.” She adds, all of their gear, along with their clothes, having been swallowed by a Hazard Unit. They still didn’t know how the pathogen was transmitted. “And notify the Republic Medical Command Center, keep them apprised of our situation.”

“Yes, Healer Che.” Padawan Leeoli nods astutely and takes Padawan Iune by the shoulder.

“Essja.” Ni Hiella draws him aside. “I’ve recalled Ben to the Temple. As soon as we get something on this pathogen of ours, go through his genetic profile, see if you find anything we might be able to use. It’ll be a lot quicker to develop a vaccine if we have something ready to work with.”

“What would be the chances?” Essja inquires.

She frowns at him in that stern, not-going-to-accept-that-attitude way of hers. “We never know.” She says, gravely optimistic.

Essja nods, listens as Healer Che assigns working teams, and gets to work.

~*~

“I’m still not sure I see the wisdom of giving a junior padawan his own starship.” Master Qui-Gon remarks, remarkably unable to resist commenting on other peoples flying in spite of the fact that he hardly ever deigns to take the pilots chair himself. Obi-Wan tries not to bristle, knowing full well that the Mandalorian _kom’rk_ class vessel belonged to the Order as much as it belonged to him personally, in spite of Fett’s insistence, but, well… sometimes, the other master just seemed to hit exactly the right buttons to get on his nerves.

“It’s not like I’m putting a _youngling_ in the cockpit of a _fighter jet_ in the middle of a _battle_.” Master Ben mutters grudgingly, and Obi-Wan squints at his master sitting in the co-pilots chair, wondering what _that_ remark was about.

He and his master had run three missions with Sian and her master in the last two months, taking on two sticky negotiations and overseeing the transition of power on a recently reformed government following a civil war. In the field, his Master and Master Jinn worked near flawlessly – well…

As far as Obi-Wan could tell, _Master Ben_ worked flawlessly with Master Jinn. Maybe not always the other way around. Master Jinn didn’t seem to work flawlessly with _anyone_.

But in private, the two were either at odds, stuck in circular bouts of awkwardly polite conversation, or having bizarre flashes of camaraderie as if they had been lifelong friends.

They disagreed, a _lot_. They argued, they brooded passive-aggressively, and then offered half-hearted peace-offerings through their padawans. Apparently, it was still one of the best working relationships Sian had witnessed in regards to her master. Mostly because Master Jinn apparently steamrolled over most opinions and perspectives that didn’t aligned with his.

Master Ben was the only person she’d seen yet capable of taking that behavior in stride without tearing into heated debate and an inability to accept working alongside Master Jinn. Rather, he seemed impervious to such attempts, and when they disagreed on the plan, he followed Master Jinn’s lead precisely up to the point where everything went to hell, and then, well, then either Master Jinn kept up, or someone had to be rescued later.

Master Jinn doesn’t seem to know what to do with Master Ben’s comment any more than Obi-Wan does, and Obi-Wan looks over his shoulder, shooting a pointed glance at Sian. She cocks her head inquisitively, and Obi-Wan tips his head towards his master, lifting a pointed brow.

Understanding crosses her face and she nods quickly.

“Master,” she says. “ would you mind proof-reading my mission report? I know we didn’t finish the mission, but I assumed the Council would still like to know what progress was made, and I’d like it out of the way.”

Master Jinn’s expression pinches briefly in something like mortified resignment, and he nods, lifting a hand as if expecting a datapad to be placed in it.

“Excellent.” Sian smiles, ignoring the gesture completely. “I’ll be in the galley, making tea.”

She leaves, and her master sighs, having little choice but to follow. Obi-Wan smirks a little as he leans forward and presses the button to seal the cockpit. Master Ben sighs quietly, head tipping back against his seat. Obi-Wan sets the autopilot with a little reluctance and takes his hands off the yoke.

“Don’t mind him, Obi-Wan.” His master speaks, surprising him. “You are picking up piloting far more smoothly than I ever did.”

“You’re the best pilot I’ve ever seen, but thank you, Master.” Obi-Wan replies, warmed by the unexpected compliment.

“My first padawan was better.” His master remarks off-hand, and then looks to bite his tongue. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean you – I mean – better than me. Better than anyone.”

Obi-Wan stares straight out the viewport, something lodged tight in his chest, a thousand burning questions and a terrible, horrid dread. Master Ben was tight-lipped about his own master, but his first padawan was something else entirely, something almost _unspeakable_, and Obi-Wan did his best to never, ever pry into that subject, no matter how badly he wanted to.

He and Sian talk about it sometimes, the things their master’s _won’t_ talk about, the both of them with the shadow of an unknowable predecessor hanging over their training. Well – Sian’s wasn’t so unknowable, as it turns out, but still…

He was jealous of her, sometimes, that she got to know her grandmaster, that she got to know her master’s sister-padawan, and all Obi-Wan had where absences where answers should have been. Still, he wouldn’t trade his master for one more conventional, not for anything.

Obi-Wan swallows, feeling more strained and awkward now, trying to start the conversation they needed to have after…after accidentally bringing _that_ up.

_If you ever have to set something broken – do it quickly. Sometimes there is a very fine line between healing and torture_.

That had been one of the starker lectures on his early lessons in field medicine. This isn’t a broken bone, but… the rule still applies, he thinks.

“You had a panic attack.” Obi-Wan says outright, have a statement and half a puff of hard air.

Master Ben hums noncommittally and nods, still settled against the co-pilots chair.

“We’re going into – whatever kind of medical emergency it is we’re going into.” Obi-Wan says. “Are you going to be okay? To do that?”

“I have to be, don’t I?” Master Ben muses, looking at him, starlight streaming over his face.

“No.” Obi-Wan says strongly. “No you don’t. You’re allowed to say if it’s too much. You’re allowed to say _no, I can’t do this_.”

That was he first real lecture his master ever gave him, so it aches, that his master looks so _surprised_ to find it directed back at himself.

_My master_, Obi-Wan thinks, _is sometimes an idiot_.

“The alert…caught me off guard. I thought it was something else.” His master admits.

“Was it a flashback?” Obi-Wan asks quietly, the universe seemingly closed down to this small capsule of his ship, lit by star-stream and existing only because the two of them existed.

“A fear.” His master replies, just as quiet if not more so. “But one not yet realized. For which I am relieved.”

Obi-Wan breathes in and out, channeling himself in the expansion and exhalation. It’s better than fidgeting, at least. “About the Sith?” He asks.

Master Ben huffs ruefully. “What isn’t?”

Obi-Wan focused again on his next breath, not liking that reply. He gives in to the urge to reach up and rub at the scar on his face, mostly faded and turned silvery now, instead of the raw bruise-color it had been. That had been helped along greatly when the Halls of Healing had received four full-body Bacta tanks in a complimentary shipment from Thyferra last month.

Not because Obi-Wan had used them, or any of the other Bacta supplies, but because his Master had been volunteered to demonstrate their effectiveness when the first patient up for actually using them, a miralukan padawan, had adamantly protested, alarmed by the _things_ she could sense wriggling and clustering inside the fluid.

“There aren’t _things_ inside the fluid.” His master had tried to reassure her, having assigned himself to oversee the installation, under Master Ni Hiella’s impatient eye. “The Bacta is the fluid, and it’s an organism. More accurately, it’s several billion micro-organisms.”

She hadn’t budged, and Essja had needled his primary patient into providing a simple demonstration. Maybe just a few minutes. To prove it was perfectly sound treatment.

When they pulled his master out thirty-six hours later, he’d been extremely displeased, no matter how many different ways Healer Chias tried to explain the benefits of letting him sleep in there when he’d dozed off. Obi-Wan had personally been on Essja’s side, given his Master’s medical profile, but Master Ben, despite being well rested, had been grumpy about losing a day.

He’d then proceeded to squeeze glops of Bacta out of his shoulder-length hair, grab his padawan by the ruff, and smear it across his face.

“Aw, gross, Master! Why?” He’d yelped, just shy of punching the older Jedi in the stomach.

Master Ben had taken his chin in hand, forced him to look up, and remarked implacably; “They don’t get to mark you.”

The look in his eyes had been a _tad_ unsettling.

But it did make him feel better, to have the scar fade out. Essja was hopeful about trying to treat his bad wrist with Bacta too, but they hadn’t had the chance for that kind of experimentation yet.

“So you’re steady?” Obi-Wan asks, seeking affirmation. “You’re good to go into this?”

His master leans out of his seat a little, looking him in the eye with a touch of amusement. “I’m good to go, padawan. And if I’m not, I trust you to look out for me.” He says, with the curve of a smile.

Obi-Wan lets out a sigh of relief, savoring the flash of pride he feels, to have his master’s faith. “Always, Master.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: If anyone reading this happens to have even a slightly better understanding of medicine or pathology(?) than me, please tell me when I screw up too badly. The science in my science-fiction doesn't have to be perfect, but i'd like it to at least make some sort of sense.
> 
> Also: Just broke 400k words!


	4. Chapter 4

“What do you mean you can’t release the door?” Quinlan seethes, leaning against the wall with his comm. “No one in this room is displaying any symptoms, I told you that.”

“_It’s not you, Padawan Vos_.” Padawan Leeoli replies through the comm. “_Master Se is in the corridor outside, and she’s reporting symptoms. I can’t release that door, or we put you all at risk_.”

Something ugly twists up inside Quinlan, hot and cold and wrenching. _Master Se_?

“Is she – will she be okay?” He demands, feeling black threads leech through his mind, all possession and anger and fear.

“_She’s only reported headaches. It could be nothing, but we just can’t take the risk_.” Padawan Leeoli replies.

Quinlan focuses really, really hard on not crushing the comm in his hand, on not snarling and lashing out, not letting that _thrilled_, vicious thing winding up inside him, digging at his ribcage, scrabbling at the inside of his skull, overwhelm him and get out. He can’t slip into the Well, not now, not surrounded by younglings who have no one who could protect them.

“We have unattended babies upstairs.” Quinlan reports, again, through gritted teeth. “Someone has to get to them.”

“_We’re still receiving reports from the rest of the creche, Padawan Vos_. _Give me some time, and I’ll report back to you_.”

~*~

“What are they doing.” Master Dooku states gravely, watching in disapproval the flashy Mandalorian transport as it lowers for landing in the Temple square, the sigil of the Jedi Order painted clearly on it’s underbelly.

“No! No! No!” One of the Temple Guardians waves their arms, trying to warn the ship off. “What part of don’t come back do they not get?”

“That’s Master Naasade.” Master Adi says simply, as if that is answer in itself. Master Dooku frowns at her, and Siri imagines that’s what the Temple Guard is doing under the mask too.

“Clearly.” Master Dooku replies. Who else, after all, would have a ship like that?

“The elusive Master Naasade.” Padawan Vosa murmurs, watching the ship’s ramp lower with interest.

The Temple Guardians and Judicial Forces have cleared the Temple square and the surrounding area, but there is still a gathering crowd of journalists and reporters and flash-cams at the perimeter, all of them zeroing in on the ship.

Siri hopes they get good pictures.

Master Naasade strolls out of the ship with an undeniable sense of command to his presence, his hair half tied back, his armor gleaming, the clip of his boots a stern tread. Obi-Wan follows shortly behind, stark in his black and whites, his hair gleaming brighter red for the green of his _beskar’gam_. Master Jinn and Sian follow more reservedly, their expressions calm but grave, the devaronian padawan lacking some of her usual charge.

“You were directed not to return to the Temple.” Guardian Rozess barks clearly, meeting him on his approach.

“I was recalled by the Healer’s.” He replies simply, nodding in respect to the Temple Guardian.

“Do you have something that could help?” Master Adi asks sharply.

He turns his head in a short negation. “Possibly. What’s the situation inside?” He continues, crossing his arms and eyeing the Jedi before him in expectation of a briefing.

“Hey there, Siri.” Obi-Wan says quietly, coming up to her to bump her elbow, Sian trotting up behind him and yanking her into a hug.

“Hey yourself.” She replies, eyes on the mastersafter giving them both a quick once over to make sure they were unscathed.

“They’re having trouble opening sectors of the quarantine. None of the scanners seem capable of registering the pathogen, whatever it is, so all they can do is say which ones are confirmed hazardous and which ones are unconfirmed. There’s no way to positively clear any sector.”

“That’s going to make things difficult.” Master Naasade comments, stroking his beard. “The system is designed to create safe zones. Without them, we can’t move resources or resume partial operations. People will just be stuck.”

“Obviously.” Master Dooku retorts, and Master Naasade, looking somewhere into the middle distance, doesn’t even seem to register his annoyance.

“How are communications?” Master Naasade inquires.

“We’ve re-established contact with the Halls. Master’s Koon and Windu are in the Council chamber, Master’s Yaddle, Fisto, and Sifu-Dyas are currently stuck in a lift, and the rest are either off-world or reporting ill.”

Naasade grimaces, but nods. “Master Koon and Windu can access critical functions and maintain status updates from the Council Chamber - they’ll have to take executive command for the High Council. Talk to them directly. What about the creche?”

“We don’t have contact with the creche.” Knight Gallia replies.

“_Get_ contact with the Creche.” Naasade commands sharply. “And we need a head count on all the visiting envoys.”

Master Adi bites her cheek at the rebuke in the command, clearly not having expected it, and Siri steps up. “I’ll take care of that.” She says.

Master Naasade looks at her, gaze cool and sharp and utterly impersonal, and nods once in acknowledgement, holding no doubts and a hard expectation.

“Has the RMCC said anything?”

“They helped set the perimeter, but whatever the Temple has, it’s not on their radar on Coruscant.”

“Then this outbreak started with us.” He nods, as if only confirming something he already expected. “They’re keeping a unit on stand-by?”

“Ready to assist as needed.” Master Adi nods, adjusting herself to this new side of Master Naasade.

“Keep them close, and co-opt their field command with ours. Communication needs to be quick and clear.” He addresses that to Guardian Rozess, who nods and delegates to some of her people. “If we carried this in off-world, they may receive reports from the system of origin, hopefully even identification and methods on combatting this illness. Something this virulent will hit their radar sooner or later.”

“_If_?” Master Qui-Gon and Master Dooku both utter beneath their breath.

“Anything from the Senate?” Naasade asks Master Adi, ignoring them.

“No.” She shakes her head, and that reply gives him pause. He eyes her, and then glances towards the Senate District, and the shadow of the Dome. He glances back.

“There will be.” He remarks. “I’ll leave that in your capable hands.”

“You’d better.” Master Adi replies pointedly, and Naasade’s hard countenance slips a moment with a twitch of a slightly rueful smirk, and a softer, more acknowledging nod.

“Guardian Rozess, I’m going to need a Hazard Suit.”

“We’ll need two.” Master Jinn comments. Master Naasade turns and eyes him critically, and then nods in acceptance. Siri thinks he doesn’t actually want the other man in company, but has decided that he doesn’t have the patience for an argument.

“Master!” Sian protests.

“You’re staying here.” Master Jinn tells her.

“Duh!” She replies. “So should you.”

“Patch me in to the dedicated comm frequency, will you?” Master Naasade asks Rozess, who nods. “Obi-Wan.” He says simply, and taps his temple. Obi-Wan nods.

“And do I have a role in all this, or shall we simply stand by?” Master Dooku asks lowly, having watched with great criticism.

“Master Dooku.” Master Ben smiles, all sharpness and charm and no kindness at all. “As the senior Jedi on site, you are obligated to fill the role of Incident Commander. Everything that happens between those doors and that perimeter line is officially under your command.”

“You’re putting _him_ in charge?” Padawan Vosa demands angrily.

Master Naasade cuts her an understanding look, lined with durasteel. “That isn’t up to me.” He replies, tapping the thumb of his armored glove on the bottom edge of his chest-plate, beneath the suns. She blanches, curling in on herself a little, eyeing the Mandalorian armor. “It’s a matter of protocol.” He looks to Master Dooku. “But I see no reason not to. He is a Jedi, after all.”

Siri looks between the three of them, trying to connect the dots between Padawan Vosa’s anger, Master Dooku’s pinch-mouthed sour expression, and Master Naasade’s steely affirmation. Her confusion must be coming off of her pretty strong, because Obi-Wan leans in and whispers the answer in her ear; “Galidraan.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

“Additionally, there are several hundred working pairs in the field right now. Contact the Halls and have them open up their reporting system, get more people on it. That’s a lot of tracking to do and they don’t have the resources to do it. RMCC can assist, as can the Padawans. Also…” He eyes the fading light in the sky. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to figure out where you’re going to sleep tonight.”

“On my ship.” Obi-Wan blurts out. His master lifts a brow, shrugs, and concedes the point.

“There are likely other Jedi on Coruscant who aren’t sure what to do now that they’ve been warned away from the Temple. Try and issue a statement for them to report to the perimeter.” He directs at Siri, who nods smartly back, her heart racing a little as she accepts responsibility once more.

Gaurdian Rozess comes back with the Hazard Suits, and a Republic Medical Command Technician who briefs them quickly and concisely on operating in a potentially contaminated environment, how to avoid contact, how to respond in the event they believe they’ve come into contact with the pathogen. It’s clinical and bland and terrifying all at the same time.

Master Naasade follows along as he strips out of his armor, donning his Hazard Suit like he’s done this a dozen times before. Master Jinn looks a little apprehensive, testing the seal of his laser hood more than once. It’s one thing, Siri thinks, to face battle. Another to face less cuttable foes – enemies like sickness, or, she thinks, famine.

“You don’t have to go.” Sian repeats, voice tight and tense. Her master puts a hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll be fine, little one. Don’t center on your anxieties.”

Sian turns her iridescent glower on Master Naasade, who vows solemnly; “I’ll never let anything bad happen to Qui-Gon Jinn.”

She nods sharply and huffs, allowing her master to step away, handing him back his lightsaber to clip onto the utility belt of his suit.

Sian steps back, and Siri takes her hand, squeezing. They watch the two Masters make their way up to the Temple doors, and Siri tries not to center on _her_ anxieties when they disappear inside.


	5. Chapter 5

There are two Temple Guardians in the atrium, sitting against the wall and waiting things out. They nod their greetings, but don’t get up or attempt to approach, understanding the protocol the moment they see the Hazard Suits.

They make their way towards the nearest lift, Qui-Gon following carefully in Ben’s wake, both of them with their senses cast wide, catching the confusion and worry threaded throughout the Temple, hazed with impatience and illness.

The lights in the lift are sterile blue, and Qui-Gon shifts when Ben enters the settings. “The sublevels?”

“We’ll get across the Temple far more quickly and with far less risk by utilizing the disused levels beneath us.” Ben explains.

“I think you underestimate how unnavigable the lower levels are.” Qui-Gon warns. The renovations and retro-fitted service passages never came with any official mapping, utilities and storage simply being worked in where they were necessary in a place that had already been a labyrinth.

“I think you underestimate how well I know this Temple.” Ben retorts. Qui-Gon opens his mouth, pauses, and closes it again.

During the wars, temporary barracks had often been squeezed into the lower levels, in between server rooms and coolant generators for troopers temporarily stranded on Coruscant for one reason or another. Ben had also been no stranger to sneaking in and out of the Temple, either for covert missions or simply for personal peace of mind, after the Republic ran a PR campaign making him and Anakin the face of the war effort; to say nothing of the fact that by the time he was commanding a full third of the clone army, he couldn’t walk through the corridors without someone addressing their problems to him. He didn’t mind, truly – he was a High General and a High Councilor, it was his duty – but it was so…._tiring_. Some days he simply couldn’t handle the effort it took.

The lighting is sluggish to respond to their presence, flickering and dim with their minimal power allotment, and Ben takes care not to trip up on cables and mouse droids and the occasional loose panel, winding his way through the warren of darkened rooms. He slows down in the places where his usual cues are missing – there is no color chart on the fourth junction where Cody had attempted to carve out and assign personal space for each battalion, no mural of the wolfpack outside the second plumbing systems service room, no yellow and blue handprints and spatters from General Secura’s men doing their repaint and getting into it with some new recruits from the 501st.

There is also the lack of cargo containers and munitions racks and polished stacks of replacement part and pieces and repair kits for the plastoid armor, changing the shape of the space.

“Crowded down here.” Qui-Gon murmurs, as they slip between the wall and a poorly placed generator.

“Not really.” Ben replies, looking at the shadows and expecting to see ghosts, and finding nothing instead.

~*~

Hand drawing something that should really be on a holographic display, is, apparently, the most impressive things some of the younglings have ever seen, and their eager curiosity and enthusiasm is a whole lot better than fear.

Still, Quinlan is frustrated, carefully plotting out lines, trying to map rooms from memory and Padawan Iune’s careful descriptions.

They’d pushed all the tables to one side of the room, and across the floor, utilizing odds and ends holopens and paints the younglings happened to have in their pockets, Quinlan has drawn out the Creche tower, divided by levels. Next to that, he’s drawn flat maps of each level – the ones he needs to worry about, anyways, and marked out rooms. The rooms reported contaminated, the younglings get to draw danger symbols all over in yellow glitterpaint. The rooms reported to be empty, they get to trace in blue. The rooms that are occupied get white numbers for how many people are inside. It’s fairly comprehensive, and the younglings are very engaged in the activity, even if they don’t quite understand the purpose.

Which is probably for the best, Quinlan thinks.

“That’s everything between us and the nursery, yes?” Quinlan reports back, watching Aayla and Lyra pile their collection of plush monsters on the ‘nursery’ part of the map, to represent the babies in need of rescue.

“_Yes, but you can’t just start cutting through floors_!” Padawan Iune protests.

“I’m not going to.” Quinlan retorts, thinking that they’ve only Padawan Riis’s lightsaber, and he didn’t think it was even rated high enough to manage that, not with the way the creche tower was built. “There should be a service lift in the kitchens, right? I need you to override the quarantine seal so I can use it.”

“_The service lift is not made for anything that has to breathe_.” Padawan Iune says doubtfully. “_And it’s pretty small_.”

“I’ll fit.” Quinlan insists, holding back a bitter temper by a thread. It helps that he can tell Obi-Wan in on planet, that he can feel him through their bond like a steady counterweight, but the stress is still…difficult, when everything in the back of his mind promises _solutions_, promises _power_, promises _it would be so easy if he just_-

“_I need permission for that. Stand by_.” Padawan Iune reports.

“You’re going to leave me here?” Padawan Riis asks, the tholotians boy’s bright purple eyes wide with anxiety.

“I’ll be coming back.” Quinlan says impatiently. “But you need to watch them, and you need to help me track my way through the creche.” _That’s why I spent the last two hours constructing a fripping map_, he doesn’t snarl out.

The boy shrinks back anyways, hair pods tensing. Quinlan grits his teeth, tangling a hand into his own hair and yanking a little. He breathes in and out slowly, deeply, grounding himself. “The younglings can’t be left alone, Riis. I know it’s a lot of responsibility, but you are more than capable, okay? I have to go get the babies, so you have to stay here. I _will_ be coming back.”

“Okay.” The younger boy says seriously, copying Quinlan’s breathing techniques and shedding some of his anxiety. He nods belatedly. “Force be with you, Padawan Vos.” He says, with all the temerity of someone imitating someone older and more sure of themselves.

“Force be with us all.” Quinlan quips back, heading to the kitchens in the back of the dining hall. Iune hasn’t gotten back to him yet, but he will. They have little choice in the matter. Th babies can’t be left alone, and no one else in the creche is in a position to take care of them. Some of the initiates were unattended as it was, but the older kids could keep, at least, for a little while. The babies couldn’t. Even four level away Quinlan can feel the sharp, rising sense of uncomplicated _fear-sadness-hunger-need-discomfort_, getting worse the longer they were alone, feeding off of each other’s emotional backlash-

And he needed to not get caught up in that, he reminds himself sharply, biting the inside of his cheek. The Dark Side was bad enough when it only had him to feed off of, he didn’t need to let it have any extra fuel.

There is a sharp crackling snap on his comm-link, and Quinan swears under his breath, because if it’s broken-

“_Quinlan_?” Siri Tachi’s voice comes over the line, and Quinlan gets a rush of calm wash over him, something a little steadier than relief. “_Quinlan, Padawan Iune patched me in. I’m outside the Temple. You’re in the Creche_? _Quinlan, report_.”

“Give me a _chance_, Siri.” Quinlan drawls. “Yes, I’m in the Creche.”

“_Padawan Iune says you have the most comprehensive sit-rep of the creche, is that accurate_?”

“It is.” Quinlan reports, frowning a little at that line of inquiry.

“_Are you in contact with the other sectors_?”

“Just Master Se. I don’t exactly have everyone’s comm-line, Siri.” Quinlan reports caustically. Master Se was still the only Master in the Creche who didn’t tense to see him there.

“_I’ll feed them to your comm-link_.” Siri says.

“Why?”

“_You’re going to be operational point-of-contact_.” Siri states. “_You have the most access where you are._”

“Siri, no.” Quinlan replies flatly, with a streak of rising horror as what she’s saying sinks in.

“_Quinlan, yes_.” Siri replies just as flatly. “_Congratulations, Padawan Vos. The Creche is under your command._”

“I can’t actually do anything, Siri!” Quinlan snaps, agitated and alarmed. “I’m just as stuck as everyone else and in case you haven’t been informed, I have a nursery to rescue.”

“_I’m going to help you_.” Siri replies, ignoring his pissy tone. “_There’s a holo-broadcast display in the ceiling on the dining hall. You need to open up the panel and do some reprogramming. Master Windu is going to walk you through it, so they can route you some system functions control for the Tower_.”

“Siri, no.” Quinlan repeats, with the sinking feeling that that is a very, very bad idea. He’s – He’s – he just can’t. How can they trust him with that? He _can’t_. “Siri, no.” He repeats. “That’s a bad idea.”

“_Quinlan_.” Siri snaps, and then sighs, a crackle over the comm. There’s a shuffle on the other end.

“_Quinlan_.” Obi-Wan says kindly, coming over the comm as back-up. “_You _can_ do this_.”

“Do it for Obi-Wan!” Aayla shouts abruptly, and Quinlan startles, not having noticed her trailing after him, looking concerned. He looks down at her big hazel-green eyes, and the hideous plush monster tucked in her elbow, the little twi’lek all knobby knees and twitchy lekku. He lets out a defeated breath. Talk about the tag team of the millenia; he never stood a chance.

“Yeah, sure.” Quinlan nods wryly, trying to swallow dread. “For Obi-Wan.”


	6. Chapter 6

A flashing orange holo-beacon guided her towards the return checkpoint for Jedi stranded outside the Temple on Coruscant, and as passers-by became aware that she _was_ a jedi – by her manner of dress, her braid, or her lightsabers – they rushed out of her way. It made it easier to get Ani and Jax through the streets, but it left an unsettling feeling low in her belly.

They were afraid of her, of her sons, and what they might be carrying with them.

Shmi has been carefully watching both boys, but neither complains of headaches, let alone any more progressive symptoms. She is grateful, in a way, to have been down in the lower markets with her boys and Knight Dahvo, taking a break from the tireless debates of the Congregation and checking with their contacts on the Freedom Trail. She does not like the idea of having been trapped in the Temple with nothing but her worry. When she was a girl, a sickness has run rampant through Gardulla’s palace. Shmi hadn’t caught it, bless Ar-Amu, but so many others had, and Gardulla had had them all locked up in the cellars, and left them to die or recover.

She knows the Jedi would do no such thing, but Shmi remembers those long weeks with a terror that never faded. Gardulla’s major domo used to drag her down there, to the doors where she could hear them begging and weeping and suffering, and threaten to lock her in there too if she was disobedient, or willful, or annoying.

Shmi would sneak back down in the late hours, and sing for them, praying all the while to Ar-Amu to protect her from such sickness. Amu Mee’ameeli had died like that, and the loss of Shmi’s second mother had hurt far worse than the loss of her first.

The Temple Guardian at the checkpoint spots her and waves, beckoning her forward. Holo-cams flash from around the perimeter.

“That’s Shmi Skywalker.” Someone says.

“The Skywalker Initiative?”

“Padawan Skywalker?”

“Padawan Skywalker! Padawan Skywalker! Can you tell us-“

“ – is there really a-“

“- does this reflect on the Order’s new-“

“This way, Padawan.” The Temple Guardian reaches her, putting their flat mask between Shmi and the holo-journalists and reporters. “Knight.” They stoop over a little. “Initiates.”

Jax and Anakin both smile up at them, and the aura of _protective-light-soothing_ the Temple Guard puts off for their benefit.

“Thank you.” Knight Dahvo nods, helping usher the boys into the checkpoint, where they are scanned and questioned and added to the roster.

Shmi is given a breathing filter to place over her mouth and nose, and gloves. The boys whine about having to wear them, but agree to when Shmi explains it will keep them from getting very sick. _Or spreading sickness_, but that thought she keeps to herself. If Ekkreth has any luck to spare for her, her boys don’t have the illness. Even with the gloves, they are instructed not to touch anyone else, to avoid even standing too closely.

“Shmi!” Obi-Wan appears to have circumvented the medical devices in favor of his own beskar helmet and armored gloves, deep green accented in silver. He waves at them and jogs to meet them, stopping Anakin and Jax from bolting into his legs in spite of the instructions they were just given with a gentle push using the Force.

“I did not expect to see you here.” Shmi says, adjusting the fit of the filter-mask on her face.

“Master Ben was recalled by the Healer’s. They’re hoping he might be able to help. His immune system, you know.”

Shmi didn’t really, though she did know the Healer’s had much to argue about with Ben’s medical profile. She nods nonetheless, because she truly does not need to know, does she?

“I’m really glad you weren’t inside.” He adds, helmet tilting as he takes them in, his face unknowable behind the shiny black t-visor. “They’re fine, right?”

They would have been quarantined if they hadn’t been. “No symptoms.” Shmi reports anyways, to reassure both him and herself.

“Good.” He nods.

Shmi looks around seeing small clusters of Jedi and Republic Medical personnel scattered between the perimeter and the Temple proper, temporary workstations set up, pallets of back-up supplies waiting to be used. “Where do you need help?” Shmi offers.

“That’s up to Master Dooku.” Obi-Wan informs her, turning and unerringly pointing the older Jedi out, in the midst of where things looked busiest. “Do you want me to take the boys? They can play in the ship.” He offers, gesturing to the parked vessel.

It’s not a bad idea, both to keep them out of the way and keep them safe.

“Yes.” Shmi nods.

“Why do we have to go in the ship? Why is everyone scared?” Anakin asks shrilly, holding Jax’s hand in spite of being told to touch no one. Shmi does not sigh, having had little hope of separating them in the first place.

“There’s a sickness in the Temple, Anakin.” Obi-Wan replies. “We have to be very careful, or it will spread outside the Temple, and it would affect a lot of people.”

“But what about _our_ people?” Anakin demands, half pouting.

“We’re doing the best we can.” Obi-Wan replies earnestly. “Which is why your mother and I need you two to go in the ship. So you can be safe, and we can do what we can to help everyone else.”

Anakin looks at Jax, and then back up at the older boy. “We want to help!” He declares.

Shmi could bleed with the pride that fills her at that moment, the aching relief that she has raised such a _good_ child – such good _children_.

Obi-Wan hesitates, and Shmi knows the boy has a hard time denying Anakin anything, would find a way to help him help them if he could, and steps in.

“Ani, Jax.” Shmi says. “The best way to help us is to let us do what we must to help others. When you are older and more skilled, there will be plenty for you to do.”

“But-“

“Patience.” Shmi says firmly, crouching down to be level with them. “People are suffering. You cannot focus on what you want now, but on what you _must_ do. I know you want to help, and I am _proud_ of you both, but what you must do is what we are asking you to do. That is how you help us today. Do you understand?”

“But we could do so much more. I _know_ it, Amu.”

She wants to cup his cheek, to hold them both, and instead carefully wraps the Force around her little family, cradling them in her soul. “In time.” She promises. “Now walk with Obi-Wan. Go to the ship.”

She stands, and Anakin scrunches his face up, but nods in acceptance.

Obi-Wan nods to Shmi before guiding the boys away, and she goes to introduce herself to Master Dooku.

~*~

“Padawan, I need this lift released.” Ben says into the comm, repeating the designation.

“_Just a moment_.” Padawan Leeoli replies. Ben tries not to strafe at the delay, but it has become apparent that the Halls do not have adequate resources at the moment. Were it a standard crisis, Jedi cleared of any illness would be relegated to assist in the management of said crisis. As the situation stood, isolation was the only preventative, and with the current lockdown, many were not where they needed to be.

It was such a perfect misfortune, and it riled every instinct he had. It could be innocent, just a fluke.

But he doubted it.

_This did not happen before_. He thinks. _And we’re being more careful now, not less_.

He kept going over the list of symptoms in his head, hoping for familiarity, for some idea of what it could be, but the problem wasn’t that he couldn’t think of one – it’s that he could think of too many. And what he could think of was paltry compared to what an actual Healer might be able to identify.

It’s a terrible irony to be hoping he’s come into contact with this particular dreadful illness in the past, but here he is. Hoping.

At least it would have proven useful.

Provided Padawan Leeoli actually manages to get him up to the Halls, at this rate.

“Have you managed to get through to Master Windu?” Ben inquires of Qui-Gon, who has been angrily jabbing at his comm for the last several minutes.

“I can’t seem to get permission to access the right frequency.” Qui-Gon scowls. Ben turns, brows drawn low.

“And you’re just now saying something?” Ben says sharply, snatching the comm from his hand. “It’s not something you’ll just be able to _guess_, Master Jinn.”

Qui-Gon draws himself up, arms crossing. “Forgive me, but I was attempting to make myself useful while you were preoccupied. Fruitless as the endeavor was. You need Coun-“

Ben cycles the codes at random, knowing he’ll eventually recognize-

There. Perfect.

The Council really ought to reconfigure their authorization passcodes instead of just recycling them, but Ben had been neglecting to mention that in case – well, in case of incidents like this, where knowing them might prove useful. He passes the comm back to an off-footed Qui-Gon Jinn. “Kindly request he release this lift. It may be quicker than replying on Padawan Leeoli to fetch a Master Healer for permission.”

Qui-Gon nods, eyeing him strangely, and keys his comm.

“_Qui-Gon_?” Master Windu demands. “_How_-“

“I am escorting Master Naasade to the Halls. You are aware?”

“_Yes_.”

“We need a lift released to return to the main levels.” Qui-Gon reports, offering up the lift designation.

“_You’re in the sublevels_?” Master Windu inquires shortly. “_Good thinking_.”

Qui-Gon remains quiet. The operational light on the keypad blinks on. Ben sighs in relief, though a moment later it becomes apparent that the lift is terribly dis-used. The door whines and sticks, and they have to wedge it open to get inside.

“I’m not entirely confident in this lifts ability to get us where we need to go.” Qui-Gon informs him.

“Neither am I.” Ben mutters, stepping inside regardless. “How familiar are you with the support mechanics?”

Qui-Gon catches on quickly. “You want to disengage the safety locks?”

“And use the Force to take us up.” Ben nods.

Qui-Gon tips his head thoughtfully. “Not exactly the safest plan.” He hedges, well aware of the sheer span of the drop still below them, as is Ben.

Ben smirks in challenge at his old master. “Do you trust me?”


	7. Chapter 7

Nine babies. Nine screaming, biting, scratching babies, who were hungry, and tired, and afraid. Quinlan gets the last one down the service lift and stands for a minute in the nursery, alone with himself in the sudden quiet.

It’s not exactly safe to travel in a service lift – no airflow, no pressure moderation, no organic lifeform safety protocols – but he hasn’t got much of a choice. The babies are only in there for just under half a minute, and then Padawan Riis is waiting for them as soon as it drops.

He’s shaking a little, he realizes. A fine tremor running through his fingertips, and that awful noise in his head, all those whispering doubts and fears, all that gnawing, hungry anger, the quiet little promises, and that consuming need to break and rend and silence and destroy, to watch something fall apart, _end_.

By all the little gods, wouldn’t _absence_ be so _peaceful_.

_Peace is a lie_.

Quinlan clenches his fists and grits his teeth. _Shut up. Shut up!_

He’s slipping, and he knows it. There’s too much tension and discord and darkness in the Temple, and he’s weak to it. So damn weak to it.

“_Quinlan? Are you alright_?” Siri asks, voice softer than it needs to be. Quinlan takes in a deep breath, lets it out slow. Takes in another.

It’s hard, at times like these, not to start prying at the edges of the partitions in his mind, not to lean on the knowledge and experience of the memories of other people he has locked in there, but it’s not a safe game to play. Memory and experience shape who you are. Those memories and experience may be useful, may be needed, even, but every time he does it he sacrifices a little bit of himself, trading patchwork pieces and hoping they all fit together without driving him crazy.

And that’s without having the Dark Side leeching through his connection with the Force.

Quinlan struggles, but he doesn’t doubt who he is. He doesn’t want to get to the point where he does.

“Just figuring out what else I need to send down.” Quinlan replies, only half lying, and using the shame of the lie as an excuse to start actually doing just that. He sends down the nursery droid, and a pack of the self-heating comfort cushions, but aside from that there isn’t much left in the room he thinks he’ll need. He grabs a handful of blankets and shoves himself back in the lift when it returns, glad he’s as flexible as he is.

Holding his breath on the trip down is easy, but he almost kicks Aayla in the face trying to get out of the lift because she’s impatient and couldn’t wait until his face wasn’t smashed into his knee to make sure he was alright.

“You did it, Quinlan!” She yelps happily. “All objectives present and accounted for.”

She’s a trooper, she is. All stubborn cheer and assessing eyes.

“Couldn’t disappoint Obi-Wan.” Quinlan replies, the words more deeply honest than he’d like.

He let’s Aayla drag him out of the kitchens and back into the dining hall, which Padawan Riis has been rearranging, letting the younglnigs help him build a castle out of tables and benches to keep them distracted, piling cushions and robes into a nest in one corner for the babies.

They’re making do, but it’s frustrating. If they could actually track this pathogen, they’d have more access – proper access, to the things they need. To places with real operational control for the Temple, to dorms to sleep in, to proper data stations and comm-centers. They’d be able to move around in area’s that were deemed safe and people actually designated to occupy certain roles during an emergency such as this would be in charge, instead of him.

He didn’t like how much the Temple felt like a trap right now, their own safety mechanisms used against them. And he didn’t like that he couldn’t tell if that was the Dark Side feeding his paranoia or an actual observation.

Quinlan does a check of the room, trying to ignore the itchy feeling under his skin as he makes sure no one shows any signs of headaches or fevers, pulling apart Mog and Beru when they start pulling hair and scratching, because _those two toddlers were not supposed to be laid down right next to each other, Padawan Riis_.

Quinlan pauses by the door, brushing his knuckles against it. Master Se is outside, he knows, sitting as far from them as she could, meditating in a light healing trance. Just in case.

He turns away. “Any word from Master Windu?” He asks.

“Healer’s are managing rescue patrols now, to fetch those who are definitely ill. They’re having trouble with people still being in the corridors, and having to go around those sectors, so it’s slow, but… if we need them, they’ll come.” Padawan Riis reports.

Quinlan nods, eyeing the modified holo-display above their heads. He had limited control of the tower, and sensor data, but the most important thing was comms. If this quarantine had been done properly, people would have had a chance to vacate main traffic areas, giving the Healer’s paths to move through, but…

Quinlan shook his head. He wasn’t getting reports from the Healers – he didn’t need them, really, but he was a problem solver by nature. His mind just couldn’t help but pick a problem to pieces. The inability to identify the presence of the illness was the sticking point.

It didn’t make sense. People were sick, something _had_ to be wrong with them. But the scanners weren’t picking it up. That much he understood. It didn’t make any sense, but he understood that it was the case at hand. Which meant the Healers took longer to realize what they had.

But the suddenness of it…

It wasn’t a panic response - Healer Che did not _panic_.

_We don’t know what it is._

_We don’t know how it’s transferred._

_We don’t know how long it takes to manifest symptoms_.

Which meant…

The quarantine wasn’t a mitigation measure. It was _triage_. Separating the sick from the healthy as soon as they realized-

It’s fatal.

_Has anyone died_? Quinan wonders.

_It’s fatal, and we don’t know who has it, or how to stop it_.

So the quarantine, immediate and isolating.

Just in case.

~*~

“Ben! – and….Master Jinn.” Healer Ni Hiella was far less enthusiastic to have that particular Jedi in her halls at the moment, it seemed, but then, maybe it was just that she wasn’t pleased to have any extra Jedi in her halls. The Healer’s were understaffed for something like this, with some of their own ill as well making things worse.

“How are you doing on identification?” Ben asks right off.

She grimaces sharply, the hand she laid on his arm tightening. “The scanners are failing to do what they are programmed to do, so… we’re attempting to manually identify it. Which is a lot of scans and fluids and micro-slides, if you didn’t know. A feat which some of our staff seem incapable of comprehending.” She adds, seething out with frustration. Ben understands – Ni Hiella earned her accolades on the far reaches of the outer rim as a young healer-knight, where resources where scarce and technology hardly reliable. She was used to making do and improvising and gritting her way to a solution.

Those with the fortune to have spent their entire career in the Core… not so much. They relied more on technological advancement – which was not necessarily wrong – but it left them ill prepared to do without.

“Bacta treatment isn’t helping?” Ben inquires.

Bacta didn’t actually cure sickness, but it did boost the body’s ability to fight it.

“It’s a stop-gap measure and we have too many patients.” Ni Hiella reports, shaking her head. “And the symptoms return more aggressively. I wish we’d been warned about that.”

Ben frowns, feeling uneasy at that. “That’s not typical of Bacta treatment.” He says.

“Great.” She mutters tensely. “Nothing about this is _typical_.”

“Ni Hiella.” Ben gently pries her hand off his arm and places one of his own on her shoulder. She’s radiating exhaustion, all the Healer’s are. It’s been a long, hard day for them, a long week, and it will be longer and harder still. He takes a breath, tasting plasteen and plasma from the laser hood, which is clean but hardly refreshing, and focuses inward, to that well of strength inside himself, so carefully turned demure. He coaxes it, letting his shields flex and thin, and offers some of it to her, and to everyone around them.

She breathes in, seeming more solid under his hand. “Don’t do too much of that, you idiot. You’ll pass out.” She mutters.

“Better myself than you.” Ben replies gamely. “Now, if Healer Chias isn’t about to start rooting around in my genetic code – where do you need us?”

“At the Hub.” Ni Hiella gestures. “Padawan Leeoli is a first class medical administrator, but she doesn’t have the authority or the experience she needs to be doing the job we’re asking her to do. Crisis Management is for those of us with a few more crisis under our tabbards.”

“She’s doing rather well, all told.” Ben remarks honestly. She hadn’t panicked, hadn’t balked, she kept her directives clear and concise and calm, and that was as important as anything else in a situation like this. She’d stepped up when all the protocols that governed their response actions were being hamstringed at every turn. That was no insignificant thing.

“She is. She’ll do better under your guidance. Go. Please. We’ll come for you when we need more from you.” Ni Hiella nods, and moves off, no more time to spare.

Ben looks to Qui-Gon, whose brow is drawn with the pain he can feel in the Halls. “Shall we?” He remarks, leading the way, still shedding strength to those around him like water to thirsty plants. Master Jinn takes a breath, and, Master of the Living Force that he is, does the same.


	8. Chapter 8

“ – under the charge of Master Dooku and Padawan Komari Vosa, most notably renowned for the horrific incident that was the massacre at Galidraan. I have to say, their record doesn’t exactly speak well of the ability to command such a –“

“ – still haven’t confirmed what the exact cause of the outbreak-“

“ – yet to say why two masters entered the Temple in spite of the obvious risk-“

“ – some concern that the Order is finding itself overwhelmed since their deviation from the Senate. The undertaking was certainly bold, but incidents like this call into question their ability to truly perform as an independent entity. Can the Jedi help the galaxy if they prove incapable of helping themselves?”

The quarantine of the Jedi Temple dominated the news feeds, with everything from crisis coverage to gossip speculation. Satine watches the displays flicker over the walls of the Mandalore Consulate, tracking one figure on screen in particular.

The armor suited him, the deep green vivid and striking over his monochrome tunics, easily distinguishing him from those around him, the silver details shining. He hadn’t had much chance to visit her recently, and Satine admits that her reaction after discovering he’d been party to Jango Fett kidnapping and then _adopting_ her sister had been… unkind. Satine was relieved, deeply, that Bo-Katan was out of the Death Watch. But they hadn’t spoken much, her and Bo-Katan. Her older sister was… changed.

Satine hadn’t exactly apologized for giving him the sharpest part of her temper, but she had extended a peace offering by sending a message that she hoped to see him in his well-deserved armor.

He’d obliged, and been boyishly excited to both wear it and explain the symbolism to her, as though Mandalore were not _her _culture by birth. She hadn’t apologized, and neither had he, but they both seemed to have understood each other anyways. She hopes so.

Satine is under consulate arrest until the danger of an outbreak from the Temple has passed, but she is by no means idle. The entire Senate is frantic about this, given that it’s happening right on their doorstep. A thousand different opinions forcing themselves into the spotlight, some sympathetic, some downright hostile.

Satine can no longer speak directly for Mandalore. With her father no longer its sole nor primary ruler, her own political clout has been diminished, and she can offer nothing without the approval of the _Mand’alor_, but she strafes and schemes, sitting there, watching the feeds.

Officially, Mandalore wants nothing to do with the Jedi, and this is a position that Satine, _officially_, upholds wholeheartedly. The Jedi Order and Mandalore have scarred each other far too deeply to ever work comfortably side by side, the first two Mandalorian Jedi making an appearance in six-hundred years or not.

Unofficially, Satine sees great potential in her friendship with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and in the brotherhood between _Mand’alor_ Fett and Master Naasade.

“You’re watching him awfully closely.” _Bajurii_ Sha’me comments, strolling though the lounge and coming to pause behind the sofa Satine has claimed for herself, writing minor legislative proposals and polishing up her affirmation points for her next junior diplomat’s debate forum in between skimming the news feeds. “Mind that, _redal’ika_. Don’t forget he’s _jetii_.”

Satine looks up at the twi’lek woman oddly. “What else would he be?” Satine remarks.

Her instructor’s lekku twitch in exasperation, and the look she offers her student is some cross between pity and indulgence.

Satine frowns.

~*~

“You want to what?” Mace says, appalled at what he’s just heard.

“_The Healers are overburdened, Master Windu_.” Naasade replies plainly. “_New patients are presenting symptoms both more rapidly and more aggressively, and retrieval for treatment is taking too long. We cannot isolate and open up clean areas – fine. But we cannot keep holding like this. Opening up the contaminated area’s is the next logical step._”

“You’re talking about deliberating allowing the pathogen to spread.”

“_Under our control_.” Naasade reminds him. “_Yes_.”

“Those who are already exposed cannot get more exposed.” Master Koon comments.

Mace scowls at the Kel Dor Master, because that’s _not exactly true_.

“A decision has to be made.” Master Koon concedes, leaning back in his seat with his hands laced in contemplation. “He is correct – we cannot keep holding as we are. Too many lives are at risk.”

“If that’s your decision…” Mace sighs, rubbing his brow.

“It does not matter if it is my decision. You and I must _agree_, and if you believe this is an incorrect course of action, I do not wish to sway you.” Koon rumbles.

Mace groans into his palms. “You are the Senior Councilor.” Mace points out, wishing for just a single moment of relief from such dire responsibility.

“Let none of us pretend you are not being groomed for the mantle of Head of the Order, Master Windu.” Plo Koon replies infuriatingly. “Your wisdom and judgement are beyond your years, and your dedication has never faltered. These are difficult times, Master Windu. All of us recognize that. This is the burden of authority, and one you handle well. Let’s not falsely imply that youth is a sanctuary from it, nor that you need one.”

Mace wished, deeply, that Master Koon were not so adept at delivering both a compliment and a scolding in the same moment.

“Moment of weakness.” Mace mutters, thinking over Naasade’s proposal. They would be opening empty corridors to exposed persons, potentially tracking the illness even further across the Temple, complicating long term operations, but the immediate benefit was critical – they needed to be able to _move_.

“Alright.” Mace agrees. “Naasade? We’re in agreement, but let’s try and map this out to avoid getting too close to areas where we have people showing no symptoms. I don’t want to be sloppy and take chances.”

“_I would hardly propose otherwise_.” Naasade replies, and co-opts a map display so that they are all looking at the same image. Sections flash blue, the Halls being yellow and sectors with ill persons flashing red. Orange routes flicker across the holographic map, trying to connect all of them, changing and adjusting. “_I’m running an algorithm to calculate our best options. We can start from there_.”

“_Start_? You don’t trust the computer?” Mace inquires.

“_Too many variables to program in that quickly, Master Windu_.” Naasade huffs. “_And_ _I’ve learned not to completely rely on technology. I trust sentient judgement more_.”

Mace greatly dislikes the phrase ‘_I’ve learned’_ coming out of Master Naasade’s mouth, because it always sounds like he actually means to say ‘_I’ve learned the hard way’_.

“Fair enough.” Mace says.

~*~

Qui-Gon Jinn is aware that many of his colleagues think him unobservant. The truth is more complicated. The truth is that he observes much, but acknowledges only what he feels is necessary to accomplish his objective.

If his colleagues were more observant, they’d realize that a person could not be as talented at sabaac as he is and not have a knack for reading people. Dealing with them, he might find difficult and contrary, but understanding them was rarely his problem.

And then, well, then there was Ben Naasade.

It was often Qui-Gon felt utterly outmatched by another Jedi, a feeling he struggled with immensely, when it arose, but Naasade definitely inspired that sense of… inadequacy, which he had thought he abandoned the day he left behind Master Doou’s tutelage for Knighthood. But Naasade also made it deceptively easy for Qui-Gon to forget that difference between them.

But there was nothing deceiving about him today.

Naasade was a force unto himself from the moment they arrived, and Qui-Gon was very much paying attention.

“There are other things to focus on.” Master Naasade comments, gaze flicking up to catch Qui-Gon’s.

“I was thinking.” Qui-Gon replies curtly.

“I’m aware.” Naasade replies dryly, leaning over the data terminal’s display, occasionally lifting his gaze to scan the Healer’s around them, looking like jellyfish in the sea, with their red laser hoods under the blue lighting. “But you’re _focusing_ on _me_ and it’s distracting.”

Qui-Gon doesn’t apologize, merely nods, and Naasade breathes out a tense sigh, letting his head drop for a moment. After a minute, he straightens back up and taps the comm system. “Obi-Wan, Sian?” He inquires.

“_Obi-Wan is resting. What do you need, Master Naasade_?” Sian’s voice comes over the comm, and Qui-Gon finds himself a little more awake, a little more at ease to hear her voice. He struggles, still, with the sinking dread that he will fail this padawan as he failed the last, and gets angry with himself that by struggling with that belief, he is, in some way, already failing this padawan, but-

But he is _glad_ of her.

“How are things outside?”

“_Quieted down_.” Sian reports. “_The press seem to have backed off a little now that it’s dark and we’re not doing much more than sitting around on stand-by. Also, all the Jedi they’re really interested in are out of sight_.”

Ben’s lips turn at the mention of the press. “Anything new from the RMCC?”

“_No_.” She says. “_I’d have reported that first_.”

Naasade sighs. “I know. Just checking.”

“_You’re fretting_.” She corrects, and Qui-Gon is amused to see he isn’t the only one who gets that kind of treatment from his padawan.

There is a tonal alert when the doors open briefly, admitting another recovery team with a new patient, and Naasade lurches away from the console. “Master Polkit?”

The elderly bimm drooping in the middle of the recovery team perks up a little, eyes fever-bright. “Did you see, young man?” She says, voice surprisingly smooth and lyrical for one her age.

Naasade takes a few steps forward, before being gestured to ward off by the nearest Healer. “See?” He inquires.

“The stars.” She mutters, incoherent. “Did you see? They were so bright. And then they went away.” Her ears fold low, her entire body trembling – advanced signs of the illness. “Why did the stars go away?”

“Don’t worry, Master Naasade.” A healer says, when the master looks stricken. “She was just in the observatory. She’s not – that far gone. Master Polkit, just a little further.” They coax.

The bimm closes her eyes, whiskers twitching. “Yes. Just a little.” She agrees thinly, and lets them lead her away.

Naasade turns sharply back to the console, his steady presence flaring slightly, the warmth he was projecting into the room turning cool, like wind shifting over sands. Qui-Gon shifts uncomfortably. “It’s no use getting angry.” He chides reflexively.

“I disagree.” Naasade replies flatly. “It’s far more useful to be angry than to feel sorry for myself.”

Qui-Gon tenses, bristling slightly at the undercurrent of accusation and past arguments tucked under that phrase. Naasade tenses too, lips pressing thin as he reigns in his emotions, his presence dimming with the inward effort. “Apologies.” He mutters.

Qui-Gon swallows down his own reactionary temper and nods tightly. He doesn’t like Naasade’s cutting temper, and finds it jarring after the warmth the man had exuded earlier, holding off the oppressive feel of the crisis, easing the Healers work.

“This is always the worst of it.” Naasade confesses quietly. “The inability to act. While others suffer.”

In those words, Qui-Gon senses that too often in his life has Ben Naasade been the witness to suffering, and unable to act, and he grieves for the other man. He’s not stranger to the bitterness of helplessness, as much as he wishes he was, as much as he might pretend to be.

“If I were just – _better_, I could…ha.” Ben huffs darkly. “I sound like my padawan.”

Qui-Gon’s brow furrows. “Obi-Wan?”

“No.” Ben replies. “Not him.”

And the difficulty is this;

The more Qui-Gon learns about Ben Naasade, the less he feels he knows him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MANDO'A:  
Mand'alor - King/ Queen  
Bajurii - teacher/instructor/trainer  
redal'ika = "Little Dancer"
> 
> Author:  
Since i've seen a lot of comments about the Jedi's response, let me just say:
> 
> Response Time: It might surprise you, but most emergencies do not actually happen very _ quickly_. Setting up quarantine, getting command and control into place, reporting in casualties, this takes time in a normal incident,  
Now, this is Star Wars, let's point out that it's not a normal incident. First and foremost, because this takes place in the Jedi Temple. Which is not, in fact, a building.  
If you took the Jedi temple off of Coruscant and dropped it on earth, for example, you do not have a _ building_, you have a self-contained city with a rough population of _ ten thousand people_. It's _ massive_ and all the futuristic sci-fi stuff we've got going on doesn't change that. Second, the temple is a maze even to the people who live there. I've brought up the renovations and the ill-conceived mapping before. It's legends cannon too. It is the _least_ ideal place to have to operate a quarantine and control.  
So them still getting set-up in the few hours it takes Ben and company to get to Coruscant? I gave them a lot of credit on how far they got with that, tbh. Especially given the jurisdictional nightmare that i'm not paying that much attention to right now.  
Second: I took all of those protocols and response measures and operational guidelines that would have been in place and sabotaged them because it's more fun for the narrative. So. They're really doing their best.
> 
> Enjoy.


	9. Chapter 9

Quinlan can feel the Temple settling down, as the shock of the emergency wears off, as plans are being put into motion and the Jedi resign themselves to the waiting of it. He can tell most of the Temple residents – those who aren’t sick – are meditating, just from the low-level focused lull in the Force, and those that aren’t are doing their best to sleep.

Padawan Riis, reassured now that all of his charges were in one room and Quinlan was there to make decisions, had happily gone back to reassuring babies and entertaining toddlers with ease and acuity, and Quinlan was grateful for it. The older younglings he was left to entertain, and Quinlan had gone the route of trying to show them his strength and balance exercises, with Aayla as his assistant instructor. It had done the job of distracting them and tiring them out, but many of them where still jittery, unable to sleep, and their nerves were getting on his nerves.

And that - wasn’t good.

So he only feels a little bad about putting a little more Force behind his suggestion that they lie down and rest.

He himself has trouble getting there, and he kinda wishes someone was around who could Force-suggest him into a good nights’ sleep. He was both exhausted and wired, constantly turning over, trying to get comfortable even though he _knows_ it’s no use.

It’s early hours and he’s mostly unconscious when he senses one of the younglings up and about again.

“G’to _sleep_.” He mutters, only for familiar small, strong hands to prod at his arm, before Aayla tucks herself up against his ribcage, all sharp shoulders and prodding elbows and hard knees. “’las’ecura.” Quinlan complains.

She shivers, making a small sound of distress.

Quinlan is wide awake, sitting up. “Aayla?” He hesitates to touch her, even though he’s wearing his gloves, but it’s only a flinch of an instinct before he’s tracing the unhappy curve of her lekku, running his hands down her skinny arms. She’s warm. More than youngling-warm.

She’s fever warm.

Quinlan panics, flat out, full on panics, and that nasty thing in his chest that is all teeth and fear explodes, like ice spearing his lungs. Aayla gasps, flinching, and Quinlan scrambles away from her because he can’t – hurt – her –

He wrestles for control, just getting himself away from her, because he can’t – until his back hits the wall, and he presses himself against it.

“ – uinlan? Quinlan!” Master Se is pounding on the door, her voice strained, and the younglnigs are waking up, frightened. “What’s wrong?”

Fear is crawling up his throat, strangling him and tasting like bile, and he’s freezing –

_Don’t you want to help her? Don’t you want to save her? Do something. You have power. Use it. Do something._

_Do something._

_Do something_.

“-orry. M’sorry. M’sorry.” Aayla hiccups, arms wrapped around herself, looking scared and angry and needy all at once.

_She’s apologizing_. He registers blankly. _Why is she apologizing_?

“Quinlan, what’s wrong?” Master Se demands again.

Pain flares in his head and Quinlan hisses, hands jolting up to clutch his skull, because _ow, Obi-Wan, that was too much_, you can’t just _shove_ the Light Side at him-

“Give me a minute!” Quinlan demands, sharply, loudly, furiously, lobbing the pain right back down the bond at Obi-Wan as a warning, and everyone quiets. The younglings looked stunned, in the glazed over, absent way that tells him he put the Force in that command, and they had no choice in the matter at all, even Padawan Riis.

It makes him sick, and pleased, and hateful, and Quinlan turns around, pressing his forehead into the wall so he doesn’t have to look, or feel ashamed, or be afraid.

“My name is Quinlan Vos.” He grits out, panting and pressing his hands into the wall until it hurt with the pressure. “I’m eighteen standard years old. I am a Padawan Learner of the Jedi Temple of Coruscant. I’m in the Creche. During a medical emergency. And other people are relying on me.”

Ground yourself. State what you know. Make it real.

The exercise helps, and Quinlan gets his breathing under control. His limbs feel cold and heavy, his blood energized and boiling, and his face is wet. He’s a mess, really. Quinlan wipes the tear tracks off on the back of his hand, scrubbing his face.

_The Dark Side is destructive. It destroys everything. Even me_.

He needs to remember that, no matter how good it feels. _Because_ it feels so good when he gives in to it.

His heart is still hammering in his chest, but his breathing is even, slow, and deep. Quinlan closes his eyes, even though it’s already dark, and he’s got nothing to look at but the wall, and focuses, trying to find that spark of connection that ties him to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan has drawn back at the backlash, but when Quinlan reaches for him, he’s there. His head stops hurting so much, now that he’s not being yanked in two directions, now that they’re balancing out instead of flying apart, and the icy claws in his chest retract.

Quinlan turns around. Padawan Riis is starting to blink out of it, but most of the younglings are still glazed over, made quiet and small. Guilt twists his insides, but Quinlan breathes and lets it pass. He gently coaxes the younglings back to sleep, knowing the suggestion will wear off by the time they wake up.

Except for Aayla. He crouches down in front of her, and she tracks him with her gaze, riddled with hurt and anger and fear.

“Aayla, I am so sorry.” Quinlan says, not sure whether he should reach out and hug her or not, but she makes the choice for him, lunging in, because she’s Aayla Secura and fear never stopped her from anything. She wraps her skinny arms around his chest, still shivering, and buries her nose against his collarbone, squeezing him tight.

And then she punches him in the stomach, before going back to clinging like a limpet, because that is still how she deals with her anger.

“Quinlan?” Master Se’s voice is thin and stretched, and Quinlan has the feeling it’s taking more strength than she’s got right now to hold herself up outside the door. He has already called a retrieval for her, but she’d insisted earlier that her symptoms were mild, that more critical cases needed to be taken care of first. She didn’t have priority, for all that he wished he could insist she should.

“It’s Aayla, Master Se.” Quinlan calls out. “She’s sick.”

~*~

“Another report from the Creche.”

Essja doesn’t even register who calls it out, just pauses to glance at the file as it filters onto the display on his terminal – Aaylas’ecura, twi’lek, 8 Standard.

Essja Chias does not like having a new case pop up in the Creche. He sighs, licking his lips and grimacing at the grit still left in his mouth by the dissolvable stim tab he’d taken to keep himself alert. He wasn’t the only one.

There is a team working on swabs and slides, trying to manually identify a pathogen using simple old-fashioned magnification, and a team working on mapping the spread, and another working on trying to identify the source, patient zero. All of which were proving irredeemably difficult. New cases progressed faster that their original patients, to the point that it was getting difficult to definitively tell them apart, obscuring their chances of making a positive identification of patient zero.

Essja sighs, shifting uncomfortably in his hazard suit and stands, trying to flex and stretch and get his circulation system back in order, and so the suit wouldn’t chafe and pinch so badly in the creases. He glances over the files dotting his screen, patient after patient from a dozen different species. That was unusual too – how it seemed to cross genomes like that. It affected each species in slightly different ways, but the progression was the same, attacking the nervous system, ultimately leading to seizures.

There was a dark, dangerous whisper in the back of his mind that kept growing, and he is more and more sure that he needs to have a talk with Healer Che and Master Ni Hiella. He can’t be the only one thinking it, but someone has to _say_ it - this doesn’t feel like an outbreak. It feels like an attack.

His gaze is drawn back to the little girl’s face, and he pauses, frowns.

Essja leans in, pulling up the records from the Creche. Initiate Aaylas’ecura, who presented a fever in a matter of hours. Master Se’sanimma, who admitted to dizziness, mild disorientation, and lack of appetite over the last few days, which was more prominent in the Twi’lek cases, and was just now developing the fever. Master Nawa’ravalla, who had a check-up nearly a week ago for fatigue and numbness in his lekku, concerned that his age may be getting the better of him and may be detrimental to his occupation in the Creche, but hadn’t reported anything more when the quarantine went into effect today. (Today? Yesterday? Essja hasn’t slept, but he supposes they have likely passed into tomorrow by now.)

But the older cases had a markedly slower progression.

“It’s learning.” Essja mutters, and then bites his tongue, looking at the files again, and horrified with himself. Because that was exactly what it was doing. It was learning, more rapid, more aggressive with every host transmission.

He jabs at the terminal, re-ordering files by species, lining them up, most aggressive cases to the oldest, mildest reports. The hints of a pattern start to emerge.

If his instincts were right….it wasn’t crossing genomes like they thought – it was travelling by species.

But sickness doesn’t _work_ like that, not spontaneously, not like this. There’s no way any one team of jedi brought so many different strains of some mysterious pathogen back to the temple, and no way more than one could have carried a pandemic from the same distant system without that system having been flagged by the Medical Corps or the Republic Medical Command Center. Not with something this virulent and aggressive. It would have been _noticed_.

Essja frowned, staring at the displays. The connections he thought he was seeing were tenuous, but… the newer reports were revealing. One in particular – a class of senior padawans, four of them human, plus the human instructor. The instructor reported mild headaches. At the time the quarantine was called, his assistant instructor had been fatigued, progressing quickly to migraines. Within four hours, another human student reported headaches, migraines. Two hours after that, the next had advanced to muscle tremors. Twenty minutes ago, the last human who had been healthy at the start of the incident was feverish and incoherent when the retrieval team finally made it to them, by far the worst off of all five.

And other reports – where the ill was the only one of their species in the sector, no one else developed symptoms.

He feels he’s right, in that part of himself that existed between instinct and guidance from the Force, ephemeral and intangible, but _certain_. He’s going to call it in.

“Master!” Essja jams his comm, earning a screech from the hood’s system before the sound broke through on the open channel. “It’s lineal. You can only pass it to someone of the same species.”

“Are you sure?” Chief Healer Che calls back brusquely.

“As sure as I can be.” Essja affirms.

It doesn’t answer the question as to where the pathogen came from, or how, but it’s progress.

And it tells him something else for sure: this is no accident. This is by _design_.

“Master, Chief,” He toggles the comm, closing the frequency so it only sends to the two of them. “There’s something else…”


	10. Chapter 10

Healer Ni Hiella sighs tightly through her nose, her mind ticking over what her former padawan has brought to light.

Knowing it could only be passed from one member of a species to a member of the same species was good. It opened up options for them.

Knowing, however, that the more hosts a single strain passed through, the more effective it became was worrisome.

In first generation hosts, whomever those where who came into contact with the original form of the virus displayed minor symptoms, which took days if not weeks to progress, maintaining a longer incubation and contagion period. Those they infected – second generation hosts – developed symptoms over a much shorter period. Third generation hosts might have only days between initial contraction and seizures. Fourh and fifth generation….a day, maybe. Hours.

This was designed to spread, to go unnoticed until it was already a pandemic. Her padawan…. Her padawan had to be right. This was an _attack_.

“Anything?” Ni Hiella asks her counterparts, all bent over slides and solution samples.

“Protein, white blood cells, _bactaferraflori_-“ Another Healer shakes his head. “Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place.”

“We’re looking _everyplace_.” Someone else mutters, and Ni Hiella glances at their display, where they are running comparisons for toxic compounds. They were - investigating possible parasites, poisons, in addition to seeking out bacterial and viral options.

“Clearly not hard enough. The scanners may be failing, but we can’t. It can’t be invisible. We’ll find _something_.” One of the team leaders snaps.

“Chloroplasma, _bactaferraflori_-“

Ni Hiella twitches.

_Maybe we are finding something_, she thinks starkly, a sickly feeling crawling down her throat and spreading in her chest.

“How many of you are finding _bactaferraflori_ in your samples?” She asks calmly.

All of them, every single one, acknowledges her with a raised limb or a nod or a grunt. Ni Heilla swallows tightly, pressing that sick feeling down and grinding it beneath her will. She nods in acknowledgement. “Who hasn’t had _bactaferraflori_ in their samples?” She asks.

Stillness and silence and shaken heads.

_Idiots_, she seethes to herself. _And I’m the worst of all_.

It made terrible, dreadful sense.

Why the scanners couldn’t find anything wrong – because they were programmed to dismiss the bacta. It was, after all, a registered substance. It was supposed to be there, supposed to be _safe_.

“All advised; stop bacta treatment _immediately_.” Ni Hiella says over the open comm. They weren’t using it on the ill anymore, but they still had injuries to deal with outside their pandemic, and those were still receiving treatment.

“You, pull samples directly from the tanks, I want them analyzed.” Ni Hiella commands, retasking her team. “You, contact the RMCC, the Thyferra Medical Authority, and any source you can think of that you can trust without question. I want independent comparison files sent on what _bactaferraflori_ is supposed to look like. You, pull every record of anyone we’ve treated with Bacta.”

Ni Hiella tries not to quail, and knows that her fellow healers does too, at just how many records that will be, even in the little over a month that they’ve had Bacta. It was…miraculous when it was at work, and they’d been enthusiastic in adopting the treatment.

Shock strikes and fades quickly, her team reacting quickly to their new directives – and everything they imply – with grim, focused dedication.

~*~

“I’m fine.”

Rudaban makes a disgruntled noise, and Taria groans low in her throat, one arm thrown over her eyes as she lays on the floor.

“I don’t need to see you to know that you’re fretting. I’m _fine_.” Taria comments. “I’ve only got the migrains.”

And she’s really, really glad she can’t pass it on to her kaleesh brother-padawan, nor her kalleran Master, as they are both trapped in this corridor with her.

“He’s older than you, he’s allowed to fret.” Her master says mildly.

“That’s bogus.”

“That’s – what?”

Taria shrugs, trying to ignore the vice-like pressure behind her eyes, wrapped around her skull, _squeezing_-

“Something I heard a couple of Coruscanti padawans saying.” She mutters. “I think it has a meaning similar to absurd.”

“Absurd sounds more proper.”

“Who said I was trying to sound proper?”

“Taria Damsin.” Her master sighs, a nasally hiss to the sound that gives her all the clues to her master’s own worry that she’d never hear in the kalleran’s voice.

“I will be fine, Master.” Taria says firmly, and moves her arm enough to peek up at Rudaban, who would likely terrify anyone else with the imposing shadow he cast, looming over her like that. “I’ve got time. The Healer’s are going to figure this out, and _I will be fine_.”

She was sure of that. Not in a stubborn optimistic way, but…

Taria isn’t a seer, she’s not particularly prescient either, but she gets…glimpses, sometimes. Of herself. Of her own future. Never anyone else, never about grand events or turning points or… or all the other things that Jedi who get real visions see, but…she dreams.

The future is always in motion. She knows that. She’s seen her future change, in her dreams, as her choices changed, as her chances did.

She figured out years ago that she’s never dreamed of a future where her hair starts losing color, where her hands grow thin and lines with age. She doesn’t now if that means she just can’t see that far ahead, or if it means she’s destined to die young.

But she dreamed last night. She dreamed of a rain like she’d never seen, fiercer and colder than it ever got in Corellia’s jungles. It battered at her skin like hail, sloshed in her boots, made the floor slippery, her steps uncertain.

And she’d dreamed of Obi-Wan. He’d been older, and there was something wrong – he’d been upset, angry, and Taria remembers feeling like she couldn’t catch her breathe.

“_Do this for me_.” His voice had been hot against her ear. “_You have to do this for me_. _Please_.”

Waking up had felt like falling, disorienting and heart-pounding.

It hadn’t been a good dream. But she had dreamed.

She had a future.

So she wasn’t dying today.

~*~

Fay feels it like a flinch in the Force and closes her eyes. It was enough for Yoda, who had been resting, to wake with a startled breath.

A Jedi has just died, the sickness finally claiming it's first life.

Fay presses a hand over her mouth and draws her senses in. She had been keeping tabs on everyone, helping keep everyone calm, trying ease pain as she could. But that… she is no stranger to death. But the deaths of Jedi still strike at wounds in her soul which will never heal.

She doesn’t want to keep feeling that.

“At peace, now, they are.” Yoda murmurs comfortingly. “One, with the Force.”

“They are still gone, Little Yoda.” Fay sighs, leaning over to hold his hand, the dull tips of his claws snagging at her skin. There is so little weight to him, to his hands in hers. When he was a youngling, it used to awe her, how light he was. Now, it just makes him seem too frail, to insubstantial, as if he too might slip away from her grasp.

And one day he will.

After two thousand years, you would think she would learn to accept that. But time does not heal all wounds, and grief never really fades. It’s just forgotten for a while.

“Yes.” He sighs. “Gone, they still are.” He grumbles, sitting up, ears drooped and eyes blurry. He reaches for his pot of gimmer tea, though it has long since grown cold. Fay heats it with the Force – a simple enough trick, but too irreverent for his liking. He glowers at her. Fay smiles wryly, glad he’s feeling well enough to be cranky with his old grandmaster. “Loss, our burden, that is.” He says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: Expect delays on the next few chapters.


	11. Chapter 11

Obi-Wan rolls carefully off the bunk so as not to disturb Jax and Anakin, who are curled up together like a pair or tooka kits and using him as a pillow. Anakin’s mask has peeled away from his face in sleep, and Jax is practically chewing on one of his gloves.

He slips out of the room and makes his way to the ramp of the ship. It’s the early hours yet, the sky just beginning to lighten, the streams of traffic as sparse as they ever get on Coruscant. His comm buzzes again, and he answers the call, nodding politely to two Temple Guards walking back from their shift at the perimeter.

He is surprised, to say the least, to discover that it is Bo-Katan Fett who is calling him.

“_Jetii_.” She says flatly in greeting, as unreadable beneath her bucket as he is beneath his.

“_Ad be Mand’alor_.” Obi-Wan returns the greeting just as flatly. They both stare at each other for one quiet, bristling moment of tension, before Bo-Katan half sighs and half growls and yanks her bucket off so she can glare at him properly. Obi-Wan, using his helmet in place of a breathing filter, can’t do the same. “What can I do for you?” Obi-Wan says.

“_Absolutely nothing_.” She snorts derisively, silvery-green eyes piercing even in blue holo. “_But I can do something for you._”

Obi-Wan tips his head up a little in surprise, because he’d been fairly certain Bo-Katan would rather set him on fire than do him a favor. She rolls her eyes and corrects herself, as if she can read his mind.

“_Fett’s going to, at least. Consider it a favor returned from the Mand’alor himself. There’s a medical station on the Mandalorian Hyperlane. I’m told you’ve been there_.” She says coolly.

“I have.” Obi-Wan nods.

“_T_wo _levels have been cleared and isolated for the sole purpose of providing medical relief to jetiise in the Outer Rim who may be afflicted and need to be quarantined_.”

Obi-Wan feels relief first, and then a quiet sort of warning in the back of his mind. “What exactly did you hear?” He asks.

Bo-Katan’s eyes narrow. “_Check your news feeds, Kenobi. They’re saying the Jedi are plague carriers_.”

~*~

“ – RMCC are getting reports of hot-spots all throughout the Republic. Nothing like the scale of the outbreak in the Temple, but that’s because they’re able to identify and isolate it more expediently.” Padawan Leeoli relays.

“_Where did it start? Do they know_?” Mater Windu inquires over the comm, troubled.

“That’s just it, Master Windu. It started with us. We’re the common denominator – every single world reporting in is also a world and a region where Jedi were deployed or are currently deployed.” She says, gills gulping in stress under her laser hood.

“Which makes sense.” Healer Ni Hiella butts in, striding quickly to join the small knot of personnel meeting up at the hub, coming to stand elbow to elbow with Healer Che.

“It’s confirmed then?” Healer Che inquires tiredly.

“What is?” Qui-Gon asks warily.

“It’s in the Bacta.” Healer Che informs them.

“No.” Ni Hiella shakes her head. “It _is_ the Bacta. It’s been weaponized. We’ve compared it to clean samples from seven other hospitals. What we were given is genetically altered. It still serves its function; promoting healing and physical recovery. It just also happens to carry a provirus designed to infiltrate the DNA structure of its host and replicate. In its latent form, it’s practically harmless. Until changes occur either in the environment or in the host’s health. Then the virus becomes active, wreaking havoc on the host, and then symptoms begin to occur. Once active, it starts a rapidly devolving generational cycle, wherein the virus has a shorter life-cycle and more aggressive progression for every new host. I have never…” her voice is shaking with anger. “… seen anything so perfectly _malicious_ as this. This is a world-killer. And it was directed at _us_.”

“But it’s contained.” Padawan Leeoli states tightly, half a question.

“It _is_ contained.” Healer Che confirms sharply, making sure to look each of them in the eye before she turns back to her quietly seething counterpart. “Now that you’ve identified it, can we treat it?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out.” The Zeltron says grudgingly, eyes gleaming like dark jewels. “But right now, the best we can do is stop it from spreading.”

“How is it spreading?” Ben inquires, overlapping Master Windu asking the exact same question.

“Essja reports that our most likely vectors aside from the Bacta are physical and liquid contact, limited by same-species transfer.” Ni Hiella says. “So we need to keep the afflicted in mixed groups, and we need to quarantine carriers. Anyone who has had Bacta treatment.” She takes a breath, and Ben feels like he’s been punched in the gut. “And any Healer who’s touched Bacta.”

“Force preserve us.” Healer Che mutters a prayer, lifting a hand to her the seal of her laser-hood. They all share stricken looks, because that’s nearly half the Healers in the Halls.

“We can’t afford that loss in personnel.” Ben points out, shoving down bitter guilt at the thought of those he may have unwittingly infected. He reaches out instinctively to his padawan, the most likely candidate, but all he gets from Obi-Wan is a contained sense of stress and tiredness. No pain, no illness.

But then, if he understands what the Healer’s have said, Obi-Wan could go weeks without displaying symptoms.

“No.” Healer Che shakes her head. “We can’t.”

There’s a crackle over the comm as Master Windu muffles a curse.

“You’re effectively quarantined as you are.” Healer Ni Hiella points out. “You’ll have to be visibly marked, but those suits will provide the protection necessary to prevent you from infecting anyone else. Provided the Council will approve such measures.” She adds belatedly, deferring to higher authority.

“_We don’t have much of a choice_.” Mace replies grimly. “_Do we_?”

“No.” Healer Che replies. “We don’t.”

~*~

Where it any other circumstance, Breha would savor the gobsmacked look on Ben Naasade’s face for days. As it is, she only allows herself a moment of pleasure in victory, before taking pity on him.

“If there is anything more Alderaan can do, Master Jedi, you need only ask.”

“_W_hat _you are offering is above and beyond already, Queen Breha_.” Ben bows over holo, and Breha dips her head in acknowledgement.

“It is the least we could do.” Breha challenges lightly, looking him over in concern. There’s something to the set of his eyes, to the line of his shoulders, something martial and tightly bound that makes him look more fit to be standing in a battlefield than in a hospital. “The Jedi provide an invaluable service to the Galaxy. Alderaan recognizes and respects that service.”

She has offered them harbor, for any Jedi in the galaxy who need some place to go, be they sick or healthy. Alderaan had service vessels and medical transports from the Core to the edges of Wild Space, and she would gladly allow the Order to make use of them, for their safety and the safety of others. Getting ahold of Ben personally had been tricky, given their current situation, but being the ruling monarch of a prominent planet did have it’s perks, and she had wanted to see for herself that her and her fiancé’s friend was well.

“_I thank you, and all of Alderaan, then_.” Ben replies.

Breha nods again. “It troubles me that so many Jedi were afflicted. Have they discovered the origin?” She inquires.

Even through holo-comm, she can see him grind his jaw, and her attention sharpens. He meet her gaze, sharp and burning even washed into blue tones. What he says next is spoken very deliberately, and she keenly aware, in that moment, that he does not trust the security of this call.

It is not a private channel. She would not trust it either, if she were wary of what might be heard.

“_We can only speculate, your majesty_.” He replies.

“How unfortunate.” Breha replies, just as neutrally. “May your people recover quickly, Master Naasade.”

He smiles, but it’s a short, reluctant thing. She can only imagine that he is very much not having a good day.

“_Speaking of recovery, Queen Breha, how are Bail and his staff doing? Has the investigation into how the vessel’s where tampered with been concluded_?” He inquires, having had little chance to follow up since the engagement ceremony and the attempted assassination of the love of her life.

“Concluded and corrected, Ben.” Breha assures. “We’ll suffer no more mishaps of that method.”

“_It’s all the other creative methods you have to be concerned with_.” He says dryly.

“Isn’t it always?” Breha returns, a dark sort of humor shared between them.

He half turns away, distracted, and turns back after a pause.

“_My apologies, Queen Breha, but I must cut this short_.”

“I understand completely.” She says. “I wish you well, Ben.”

“_Peace and prosperity, Queen Breha_.” He smiles more gently. “_M_ay _the Force be with you_.”

The holo-call winks out, and Breha considers their conversation for a moment, blinking into the shadow where the blue light had been lit. She glances to the chair set up in the corner, where Nataya was perusing sheafs of poetry and sifting through hand-stitched ribbons, such where the things always being hand delivered to her.

Her spymaster had been what she was long before Breha had become queen – long before Breha had been born, in fact, and Breha trusted her judgement, and interfered little with the autonomy of her authority over the secret networks within the Royal Service Agency. So when Natayo informed her that a matter was settled, Breha rarely questioned it – she had never proven false, after all.

And she always answered truthfully when Breha did question.

“We have corrected the method of sabotage?” Breha inquires, though she had already been informed this was so. She likes to clarify her frame of mind, sometimes.

“We have, my lady.” Nataya looks up, her hands not stilling as she sifted over the patterns of stitches in the ribbons, but her focus on her queen nonetheless. She was far too old and learned to be incapable of such basic multitasking as this. “And we continue to test that the correction will withstand any further improvisation on attempts on that front.”

“What of the saboteur?” Breha inquires. “How was _that_ missed? Your agent returned to duty, did he not? So I assume you found him not at fault.”

“Lachas Bey performed his duties admirably and excellently, my lady.” Nataya says succinctly. “The fault I lay at my own feet.”

Breha frowns at that. “How so?”

“In assigning priorities the way that I approved of, we over-extended our taskings compared to our personnel. We assigned more resources to the investigation within the senate as per your request, and divided any resources which may overlap between that investigation and the protection detail of the Senator, for the safety of those involved. In doing so, I stripped Agent Bey of much of his support staff. It was… poor timing, I’m afraid. A lapse I did not see corrected prior to the incident, as Agent Bey continued to perform admirably and with favorable results. I laid much trust with one man, and that trust was not misplaced, but he is still only one man, and there is only so much work one man can do.” The older woman purses her lips, sighing in self-admonishment.

“If we had not diverted those resources to the other investigation, I can positively say that the crash would never have happened. ” She reports. “And for that, my lady, I am sorry.”

Breha turns her face away, looking out the window.

_If_, Breha thinks irritably. If is a pointless game. _If the Agency had not split their resources; If the Jedi Shadow had not compromised Agent Bey’s placement; If she and Bail had not launched an investigation; If Ben Naasade had not tried to come to his friend for help; If Padawan Kenobi’s lightsaber had not been turned into a weapon against himself; If Bail had not befriended a Jedi Master_…

If was just a game of trying to change what already was, and that – that she could not do.

Blaming her spymaster for the near loss of Bail would be too easy. As would be blaming herself, but matters such as these had their risks and their consequences, and Nataya knew that, and Breha knew that, and Bail knew that. Blame is an unconstructive exercise in folly. If she is to blame anyone – and she can and will – Breha blames the Lady Alejana, for seeking to cause Bail harm, and she blames the Sith - if that is what they are, who they are, those in the Senate she has her people attempting to root out and uncover – for perpetuating the malice which makes Alderaan’s efforts to thwart them necessary, and puts them in harms way.

“I don’t need you to be sorry, Nataya.” Breha says, stern and forgiving all at once. “I need you to do better.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Has that lapse since been corrected?” Breha inquires.

“It has been, my lady.”

Breha nods, accepting that as that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MANDO'A:
> 
> Jetii/jetisse - Jedi (singular)/ Jedi (plural)  
Ad be Mand'alor - daughter of the Mand'alor
> 
> Author: HOOOO busy week. But i'm back!


	12. Chapter 12

“How do the Jedi intend to account for this? Will they make reparations to afflicted planets?”

“ - considered a fault of taking on too much?”

“- know as of yet how this pathogen manifested- “

“ – petitions calling for the Jedi to be removed from-“

“ – rumors that the Jedi High Council is nonoperational – “

Adi Gallia takes a deep breath, exuding calm, exuding control and strength and certainty. The sky on Coruscant is bright and clear beyond the ever streaming rivers of traffic, but in the Force, she felt a pall, a storm of reeling emotions and intent, the planet rife with uncertainty and discord.

“At present, we have identified and overcome the technical malfunction which prevented us from tracking the illness in patients.” She states clearly, proceeding with the briefing and letting their clamor wash past her. “With this capability restored to us, our response is rapidly moving towards recovery as carriers are identified and patients are identified for early intervention and treatment. The Order is taking every measure possible to ensure that this outbreak does not extend any further, with generous aide from several systems and medical stations throughout the Republic assisting in our quarantine measures.”

At her side, Master Dooku stands rigidly, his countenance severe, his fingers curled tightly where his arms are crossed. It is not, Adi thinks, in the older Jedi’s nature to remain silent when challenged, but it is the most politic thing he can do at this moment- furthermore, it is the thing Adi herself has _instructed_ him to do.

“Furthermore, our healers have discerned that in its virulent form, this pathogen can only be passed between members of the same species. As such, we are developing a reference list of those species we know to be potentially vulnerable, and those we can rule out as being unable to contract the illness from the Temple. With those available, any being who believes they may be at risk of having come into contact with the virus can freely appeal to the Jedi and our allies for screening and any medical treatment we can provide.”

“Do you not think that making such an offer is egregious, Knight Gallia?” A reporter questions, a shrewd arconian she recognizes from the Senate’s press gallery. “Clearly, the Order is at the limits of its resources as things stand.”

“As one of the individuals involved in the management of the resources of the Jedi Order in question, I find that a very puzzling statement to make.” Adi states flatly. “Of course, if it would not be a waste of your time, perhaps we could discuss later your great insight into our affairs as they stand? To _enlighten_ me.”

A few other members of the press snicker, and the arconan scowls. “You did not answer the query, Knight Gallia.” They point out snidely.

“Then let me be clear; the answer is no.” Adi states firmly, offering the camera’s an unyielding look. “This is not our first crisis, and it _will not_ be our last.” She declares firmly, a challenge to anyone out there who looked now to see the Jedi weakened, beaten, brought to heel.

~*~

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Ben inquires.

Qui-Gon offers him a stressed, displeased look. “Yes. Whether I am interpreting the same thing from what I am seeing, however, is a different question entirely.”

Ben glowers at the other man for his snippiness. “That was unhelpful.”

Qui-Gon sighs roughly, and gestures flippantly at the data display. “Enlighten me, if you would, Master Naasade.”

Ben is beginning to recall his teenage years with vivid detail, the longer he and Qui-Gon remain stationed together in the small space of the data nexus for the Halls. A difference in perspective had led to hundreds if not thousands of arguments between them, made worse by the fact that both them where equally stubborn, both in defending their own insights and in refusing to give in first to the others.

That drawling, snide remark; enlighten me – had been the bane of Ben’s foolish, foolish adolescence. It was not, in fact, an invitation for discourse, but the rope with which his Master had tended to tie him in knots, shredding or dismissing his arguments, disparaging his limited experience and often unrealistic youthful idealism.

Ben’s experience was no longer limited, he was no longer young, nor idealistic.

But Qui-Gon Jinn’s pride was no doubt still stung, and his habits where just the same as they always had been.

Ben has to remind himself of that, and be…patient.

He taps the comm’s.

“_What now_?” Master Windu says wearily.

“I’m linking our displays again.” Ben reports. “We have a problem.”

“We have nothing but problems.” Qui-Gon mutters. Ben shoots him another glower.

“_Unhelpful_.” He repeats sternly beneath his breath. Qui-Gon glowers back.

“It’s less immediate but no less pressing.” Ben says more loudly, hoping Mace hadn’t heard them sniping at each other. “One of the Bacta treatment programs was for relief of chronic pain and long-term health issues.”

“_Yes_…?” Master Windu says uncertainly.

Ben presses his lips together, missing fiercely _General_ Windu. Ben taps the display, reordering the statistics in a manner with which he was intimately familiar. “Most patients in that criteria were seasoned masters and elders, Master Windu. Look at the yield of infection based on _generation_.”

Cody and Rex had used to track trends this way, and all the Jedi General’s picked it up quickly – by Clone Generations, grimacing deeper for every new slew of shinies who were less capable, less disciplined, less collected under pressure – just…less. Casualty rates, disciplinary reports, battle shock. They’d had to learn how to thread the men together to shore up those deficiencies….and how to spot where to reform a chain of command, when you had the wrong mix of shinies and experienced troopers.

“_We understand the incapacitation rates, Master Naasade, I don’t see what you’re trying to point out_-“

“Seasoned Masters and Elders, Mace.” Ben snaps, jabbing at the screen to highlight the names he can recognize at a glance. “Teachers. Creche Masters. Councilors. The percentages for affliction are over twice as high for Knights and above as they are for Padawans, Initiates, and Younglings. What I am trying to point out to you, Councilor, is that the administrative command structure for this Temple has been shattered, and it is not going to recover _quickly_.”

“_I am aware of that_.” Mace snaps back.

“No.” Ben growls. “That’s not good enough. You have to be on top of it, Mace. We need to get a plan in place, we need to re-establish reasonable command and control. As of right now, we are pockets of arbitrary authority trying to adhere to protocols that barely cover the current situation. And as Acting Head of the Order, that’s on you.”

“_I am_ not-“

“_We understand, Master Naasade_.” Master Koon states. “_We are only… out of our depth_.”

“_I am not acting Head of the Order_!” Mace protests.

“Someone has to be.” Ben points out sharply. There is a crackle and then a whine, the connection interrupted as Mace no doubt argues with Master Koon as to the accepting of responsibility, and Ben waits it out. Master Koon could take the role, but Ben doubts he will. Not because he was shy of authority, but because he understood himself too well. He was wise and capable, compassionate and optimistic, and none of those were wrong – but he had never handled well making hard decisions – the kind of decisions that had to come from a colder part of one’s self, decisions like sending a man on a mission you know he won’t come back from, decisions like choosing to sacrifice one person to save another. Koon didn’t make those decisions. He tried to save all of them, and he couldn’t, and he barely survived that fact. It made him a better commander than most, but a less effective general, from a certain point of view.

Perhaps it was a bitter gift to be better at those things, but it was what it was. And Mace was better at it, at the hard decisions, and at the broader picture and the longer game.

_“It’s a hell of a thing.” The harun kal had commiserated, over awful liquor from an engine room still. “But it’s why I was handed the job.”_

_“You earned it.” Ben had said, jostling his arm and taking the canteen from his fingertips, takinga a swill himself before passing it back with a cough._

_“I used to think that.” Mace huffed. “Before.” _

_Everything in their lives was cleaved cleanly into two now. Before the Wars. And Now. Was it only just two years they’d been out here in the mess? Only just two years? It felt like lifetimes It felt like who they had been where just strangers now._

_“That wasn’t earning it. That was just.. that was playing a game. This… I feel like I’m earning it now. Earning something I’ve already got.” The other mans sighs, pressing a palm hard against his brow, eyes squeezing shut in pain. “And I don’t want it.”_

_“Mace…” Ben sighed, weary and full of sorrow and gentle chiding, a light reminder that her understood, he did, but they _could not_ falter_.

“Does nothing give you pause?” Qui-Gon questions, drawing Ben from his memories.

“Pardon?” Ben turns, puzzled, to find the other man looking at him strangely.

“You simply move forward, no matter how stricken, no matter how dire the circumstance.” Qui-Gon informs him, eyes pinched as if this observation is an admonishment. “And you get frustrated that the rest of us may need a moment to actually process.”

Ben narrows his eyes in turn and bites his tongue, a thousand scalding reminders of the _hypocrisy_ of that statement bitten back. Qui-Gon Jinn has dragged dozens if not hundreds of overwhelmed and underprepared beings through the rubbles of their own disasters without once holding back to give them a chance to collect themselves – because he did not give them the chance to even fall apart, not until he was _done_ with them, and he wants to scold Ben because now it is _their_ people suffering? Because the disaster has come to _their_ home?

Ben breathes in, and breathe out. “There’s always a bigger fish.” He mutters.

Qui-Gon opens and closes his mouth, utterly bewildered, and Ben shakes his head ruefully. “You may take a moment to reel from the last blow, Master Jinn. Meanwhile, I’m bracing us for the possibility of the next one.”


	13. Chapter 13

Sian edges around the shadow cast by Obi-Wan’s ship, ducking under the belly and running her fingers along the metal. Under the cover created by the vessel, tucked up against the landing strut, was Padawan Komari Vosa.

“Are you alright?” Sian inquires carefully. The older Padawan had kept a blank face in front of the holocams, but her bearing had wilted the longer she was exposed, her fingers picking at her sleeves, twitcy and restless, to say nothing of her presence in the Force. She’d been the occasional focus of the media, standing out by her Master’s side, and by Knight Gallia’s side, and none of that focus and attention had been kind.

Galidraan had been dredged up by more than one news feed, calling into question Master Dooku and his padawans competency. Her disappearance had been questioned, her status challenged, and her grasp of the current circumstance constantly bombarded.

She’d withstood it well, in the moment, but even Sian had been taken aback by some of the things that had been coming not only from reporters on the ground, but out of news feeds that streamed information without even speaking to the Jedi, without even giving them a chance to speak for themselves.

Komari laughs at her question, a short, cracking sound, derisive and soft and self-depreciating. “No.” She replies honestly, washed out blue gaze meeting Sian’s irredescent blue one tiredly. The shape of her shifts and churns in the Force, always tucked inside of itself, like a cringe, worse today, prickly and evasive in turns. The human padawans lips are chapped, and she keeps chewing on them, tearing the skin even rougher.

Komari Vosa does that, Sian has noticed with dismay. Constantly chips away at parts of herself, like when she picks at her nails, or worries the seam out of her sleeves, or snags at strands of her bone-blonde hair until they fray and pull free from her head.

“I can see you worrying about me, little sister.” Komari’s smile quirks, and she brushes a pale hand through her hair, pushing it back from where it hung in her face. Her mask is slung around her neck, and her protective gloves sit beside her on the ground. She doesn’t much come into contact with anyone anyways. “That’s a waste of effort.”

In terms of lineage, Komari is more her aunt than anything, but Sian likes the term of endearment of ‘Sisters’ better.

“I can waste my efforts as I please.” Sian retorts, hunching down and shuffling forward so she can sit across from the older padawan, beneath the belly of the ship.

Komari snorts. “I suppose so.” She says easily, gesturing invitingly for Sian to go ahead and join her. Sian settles herself and lowers her own mask, glad to breathe freely for a few minutes. She doubts she has the sickness, as Devaronians aren’t exactly common on Coruscant – most Devaronian Jedi hailed from the Eedit Temple, which was actually _on_ Devaron. “I’ve certainly seen you trying to endear yourself to my master. That’s a wasted effort too.” Komari’s brow twitches.

Sian flushes a little. “Yes, well….” She huffs and then shrugs, because it was true. Trying to charm Master Dooku was about as successful as trying to charm a stone pillar.

Komari smiles at her, amused and indulgent.

“I want to learn Makashi.” Sian confesses. “Only…well, I practice with a reverse grip. So…”

Pale blonde brows go up in surprise, and her presence softens some, unfurling in a tickled sort of delight. “Really? _Reverse grip_ Makashi. That sounds like a nightmare.” Komari grins.

“It’s a challenge.” Sian admits ruefully.

She’d been meaning to broach the subject with the older padawan before, but, well, she’s been kept busy on missions since Master Naasade agreed to partner with Master Qui-Gon, and the other padawan had had her work cut out for her given that her master was being put to work by Knight Gallia.

And… and Sian had worried, because Padawan Vosa didn’t seem to be in the best of health, though she didn’t understand why, and she didn’t ask, because what business of it was hers, really?

Komari tilts her head back, a keen light dancing in her eyes as she considers the younger padawan. “Do you enjoy a challenge, Padawan Jeisel?”

Sian smiles, flashing a bit of fang. “Don’t you?”

~*~

Ben slips quietly through the door, let in by the attending healer. Under blue light, the bimm’s dark fur is washed midnight blue, the silver streaks gleaming like moonlight on water, constantly rippling as old bones where wracked with weakening tremors.

“Master Polkit?”

The Elder was curled in on herself, leaning against a propped pillow, tail tensed tightly around her body. She looked very small.

“D-did you see?” She asks softly. The healers say she’s been repeating herself. They say she asked for him. They say she refuses to be put in a Healing Trance.

Ben steps up to the bed and draws himself to sit on the edge of it. Her gaze is fever bright, but there is nothing hazy about her focus, when her gleaming eyes land on him. “The stars going out. Darkness. Such _darkness_.” He ears flatten, lips twitching into a reluctant snarl, slackening again.

His throat tightens. He can feel her slipping, not cognitively, not willfully, but in the way mist slips away, shining, expanding, lifting into the sky and becoming the wind, the clouds, the next seasons storm. Not gone, just… out of your reach.

“I saw it.” Ben murmurs quietly, leaning in to take her hand. Her fingers twitch and tense, claws digging into the skin of his palm. “Elder, you need to let the Healer’s help you.” Ben pleads gently.

The look she gives him is impatient, and full of pity. Ben closes his eyes briefly in sorrow. They both know that the healers _can’t_ help her.

“Death, yet the Force.” She chides, her voice still so young, for all that she was well beyond her expected years. The vitality of a Jedi, failing at last. “Even stars burn out.” She murmurs. “Collapse. And new ones rise. And it happens again. And again. And again. And again.” Her voice wavers, thin and distant on the repetition in a way that makes his skin prickle.

Ben lightly strokes the back of a wizened furred hand. “Master Polkit.” He says softly, calling her back.

Her focus returns, more fragile than before, whiskers drooping.

Ben swallows back grief and summons a smile, earning a flick of an ear from the elder jedi.

“Death, yet the Force.” Ben repeats softly, holding tightly to her hand. “Master Polkit, someone told me once…” Ben hesitates, because he was never, ever truly _sure_. “Someone told me once, that it was possible – possible for a jedi to retain themselves after death. To learn to – guide the living, even after.”

“A little late…for a lesson.” The elder huffs, though her voice is merry. He holds tightly to her hand, and yet. She is still slipping away.

“Learning,” Ben chides lightly, though his throat burns and his chest tightens and his eyes remain painfully dry. “ goes on forever.”

~*~

“Padawan Vos, you have to open-“

The healer outside pauses. They all pause, breaths hitching, hearts skipping, at the indescribably and yet undeniable dimming that threads through the Force, another flicker of light, of life, snuffed out.

Another Jedi dead.

In his arms, skin burning up, tears and snot soaking into his tunic, Aayla whimpers, clinging tightly to him.

‘_No. no_.’ He can hear her, inside his head, clear as she’s always been, full of _fear-hurt-weakness_ that makes him want to scream and tear the world apart. He doesn’t - he can’t. He holds her in his arms, back pressed up against the door, barring out help that he called for her, and he can’t move. His body feels like stone, like ice. He’s cradling her, because he’s afraid to touch her, to hold her properly, because he’s got to hold onto himself, fingers digging into the muscle of his arms, painful and bruising and grounding. ‘_I don’t want to go_.’

“I promise, Aayla, I promise.” Quinlan shushes her gently, voice just shy of stuttering, repeating himself over and over again even though he can’t quite say the shape of that promise.

“Quinlan.” Master Se tries, refusing to go with the medical team without first trying to help. “Quinlan, the best thing you can do for Aayla is open this door. You have to open the door Quinlan. Or she won’t get better. She needs the Healers. You know she does. _You_ called for them, and they are here. They are right _here_, Quinlan. Just open the door. Please.”

Quinlan jerks his head back, hitting the wall, and he does it again, and a third time, until Aayla tugs on his tunic to make him stop. He knows aster Se is right, he trusts her- _but why should he? She got Aayla sick. This is _her_ fault._

Aayla sniffles, making a small sound of hurt, her breath a burst of warmth against his chest, just like her skinny limbs are brands of fire against his skin.

“Quinlan Vos. I’m Quinlan Vos. I-I’m a Jedi Padawan. I’m in the creche. I’m with Aayla. Aayla – she’s sick. She needs help. She needs help.” He bangs his head again, because it’s not working, the mantra isn’t working, he’s drowning. “_I_ need help.” He pleads, reaching for Obi-Wan, whose giving him anything he can give, and who still seems too damn far away. Quinlan’s _drowning_, and Aayla’s on fire.

“Padawan Vos, we can _help_-“

“Can you?” Quinlan shouts, and Aayla flinches. Across the room from him, the other younglings, immersed in story time with Padawan Riis, flinch too, looking over nervously, worriedly. “They’re dying, I can feel them dying, are you helping them? Is that what you’re doing?”

Riis loses his focus, looking over, looking lost, and can they stop that? Stop looking to him? Quinlan can’t help them. He can’t help anyone.

“We’re doing what we can.” The healer on the other side says earnestly, weighed by helplessness just as much as he is, and _damn them, damn all of them_, Quinlan thinks. He bangs his head back again.

“Stop.” Aayla pleads. “Stop it. P’se stop it.” She whimpers. “It hurts.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Quinlan digs his fingers in deeper, feeling his flesh bruise and yield under his gloves, feeling his bones creak, his pulse struggle.

_I could keep digging_. He thinks. _I could dig and dig and tear myself apart, and then it won’t matter. Nothing would matter. I’d be free_.

_And Aayla would be alone_. A voice reminds him, the voice that sounds like Obi-Wan at his kindest and his most certain. All those things that Quinlan isn’t, anymore.

_Maybe she’d be better off_, he thinks back bitterly. _All I’m good for is destruction. That’s all I can do anymore. That’s all the Dark Side is, all it wants_.

He could feel it crooning through the echo of his every thought, curling up in his bones, begging around his bruises. Promises, promises, it whispered, delighting at the miasma in the air, at the dread and the pain, feeding on it, on the threads of illness wrapped up in the girl in his arms, at the suffering in her tears and the sparks of pain wracking her body, at the ruin succoring itself in her cells.

It’s killing her, and a sick, parasitic thing inside him _wants_ it to.

_She’s a weakness. Let her die. Let her death set you free. Don’t you think she wants you to be free_?

_She’ll be free too. _

_No more suffering._

_No more tears._

_No more fear._

_Let her die._

_It’s a kindness_.

Frost creeps over his thoughts, and everything becomes – Colder. Clearer. Brighter. Pain fades away. Uncertainty. Helplessness. Quinlan lets go of his arms, and Aayla shifts, reaching for his hand.

He pushes aside her seeking fingers and traces the crown of her head, eliciting a shudder from her sensitive lekku, smearing the tears on her blue cheeks. He cups her face and makes her look up at him, her green-hazel gaze hazy and glassy with fever, her presence in the Force a spiky, panicked, fighting thing. She looks up at him, and she _trusts_ him.

She is so, so fragile, he thinks, her skull thin and delicate beneath her skin, between his palms, her life a fading spark trapped inside.

And yet she trusts _him_.

_And all I can do is destroy_.

“I promise.” Quinlan murmurs gently. So, so gently. “I’m going to make it stop.”

He doesn’t promise that it won’t hurt.

Quinlan lets one hand slide, coming down to rest on her bony chest. Heat leeches through the glove, numbing against his hand in a way that makes him frown. He draws back and peels the gloves off, and this time, when he lays his hand there, against the sharp ridge of her sternum, its more than just heat that reaches him.

_Dust, on her skin in her mouth, she’s thirsty, so thirsty, and the sun has hours yet before it sets – _

_-she gulps and gulps for air, the collar thick and heavy against her throat, and she gulps for air and can’t breathe-_

_“You get used to pain, little one. You get used to anything.”_

_She does._

_There’s something about him. Aayla stares, and she knows she shouldn’t – shouldn’t even look, but there’s something about him, the one-eyed man. Something strange. She can feel it. The others can too, and not just the slaves like her. The Depur. They shuffle out of his way and they don’t even notice themselves doing it. They don’t like him. He’s not like them._

_But why?_

_Aayla doesn’t know. She just knows that he’s strange._

_Like her._

_ \- The little boy knows her language and the older one is very kind. He’s warm, and she snuggles into his side, wrapped up in a soft cloak. _

_They open a door, and Aayla doesn’t like it, because the wall feels like nothing, but nothing really feels like nothing, except now it’s open and it’s not nothing anymore and._

_Yellow eyes. She’s never seen yellow eyes before._

_They’re burning and wrong and he looks…_

_‘_You look sad_.’ Aayla wants him to know._

_There’s a stripe on his face, and its yellow too._

_But it’s silly._

_‘_They don’t match_.’ She adds._

_ \- It hurts, it hurts, and she wants it to stop, she wants it to stop, but it’s inside and it won’t and it won’t-_

There it is. Quinlan reaches for it, all those little seeds of ruin inside of her, all their leeching, sinister roots, thriving on the destruction they cause.

_Come to me_, he croons, like to like. _We’re just the same. Come to me_.

It’s so startlingly easy. Darkness cleaving to greater darkness, power to power.

_Come to me_.

It does, or he goes to it and it calls out to him, welcomes him.

And he _destroys_ it.

Reaches in, wraps himself around it, and -

Quinlan smiles, and Aayla _screams_.


	14. Chapter 14

Plo Koon feels keen sympathy for the fiercely reluctant pinch of Master Windu’s brow, the uncertainty in the press of his lips, the tension built in his neck and shoulders that are no doubt contributing to an already staggering headache. Padawan Billaba, though a willfully stern character in her own right, had always had a knack for dispelling her masters brooding nature, and alleviating the stress he heaped upon himself (with, Plo will admit, assistance from his fellow Councilors in that regard). Unfortunately, Knight-Elect Depa Billaba was still in the field, and her absence had brought its own sort of melancholy on her master. She was his first student, after all. He was not as adept at letting her go as he would like to believe himself to be, and it showed.

Though perhaps there is fortune that she is safe from this particular crisis.

So Plo Koon is sympathetic, but ultimately, Master Windu must rise to the occasion. From early in his training, Mace Windu had shown great promise, in insight, wisdom, and understand of the Force. He was a great warrior, developing his own Saber Form at such a young age, but he was also an excellent administrator, with a keen mind for scope and detail. Given his reputation, it would surprise many that his interests where in fact more scholarly than otherwise.

It did not surprise Plo Koon, and from the moment they made the young man a Master in his own right, the Council had been grooming him to become the future Head of the Order. He had the talent, the drive, and a modern education and experience, whereas most of the Council could be considered…slightly out of touch. Yoda held the position for now, but he had sworn three centuries ago that he would never again hold the title as anything other than an interim, and for never more than a decade at a time.

So, perhaps it may be too soon to thrust the full press of that responsibility upon the young man’s shoulders, but he was the best suited for it, and he would have no better Trial for it. Let him see now what burden he is to take, and then give him a few more years to grow into it.

Plo is optimistic.

The dull glower of resignation the younger Councilor gives him as he attempts to assign duties to their pitifully short list of viable and available candidates not-withstanding.

~*~

Master Se’sanimma jolts away from the door with horror, heart pounding, lekku thrumming painfully, as a wave of Dark, icy pressure builds on the other side, and that little girl, that little girl-

Aayla’s _screaming_.

Shrill and high and shrieking in pain, pitched to shatter glass, to make her eardrums bleed and her lekku spasm.

_What have I done_? She thinks in terror.

She has tried, she has only tried, to be kind, to show compassion, because she believed, _truly_ believed, that the Jedi could help that young kiffar. That he was not beyond redemption. That there was still good in him, and that it could win.

So she did not treat him with fear, with suspicion, with doubt. Those things would not, could not, help him.

He tried, didn’t he? To let the good inside of him win? She had thought – the way he leaned on the trust of his friend, the way he looked at that little girl, like Aaylas’ecura was salvation. The way he flinched when he let others get too close, afraid of his own darkness, trying to keep them distant, keep them _safe_-

She had thought, that even… even Fallen, that there was still Light in him, and more of it every day, and that there were some things that even Darksiders would not do.

It went against Temple teachings, but she had had _hope_ for him.

_They are not who they were_, all the scripts warned. _They become something else_.

But she had been so certain he would never hurt that little girl.

_But he is, he is hurting her_.

She’s _screaming_.

And then she isn’t.

Se’sanimma slams herself back against the door, pounding on it with a fist, startling the Healers standing around her in shock, still reeling from the driving cold of the Dark Side.

“Quinlan Vos!” Se yells his name, though it makes her throat hurt. Water drips down her face, tears he hadn’t noticed blurring her vision. And she slams her hand against the wall again, bruising bone. “Quinlan! _Please_!” She demands, trying to accept and release her fear, her fury, because it’s clouding everything, and she can’t feel beyond that, can’t tell if Aaylas’ecura is still-

The door opens.

The door opens, and he’s standing there, right in front of her, swaying in the manner of someone who has given too much, who can barely keep their feet. The tiny blue-skinned twi’lek is a limp heap of limbs and lekku in his arms, and his eyes are a burning, searing yellow, and the smile on his face is – wrong, violent, _satisfied_.

Se’sanimma towers over him, and _had she a lightsaber she would cut him down for_….

Her anger falters.

He looks…_relieved_ to see her, as he goes weak at the knees and slumps down, hitting the floor hard on them. “I did it, Master Se.” He slurs, voice half drunk and half ragged.

“_What_ did you do?” Se’sanimma asks, her own voice tight and demanding.

Those sickly yellow eyes glow and gleam, and his smile looks like it should be bloody, but isn’t.

“I destroyed it,” He grins, “ before it could destroy her.”

~*~

Ben is only half paying attention to the comm system in front of him, the rest of his attention focused on the burst of darkness he had felt, snapping him to attention like a whip. He can tell that it’s Quinlan, who has been a tumult in the Force for hours now, just not quite as _intense_, but he can’t tell what he’s _doing_, or why.

He hadn’t liked that it came just moments after Master Polkit passed into the Force. Ben had been sitting numbly in the room with her body, trying to reconcile himself with the fact that it had been inevitable, that he could not stop death, that there was nothing he could have done to save her, and doesn’t he know that by now? He can’t ever save _all_ of them.

There has just been….too many times when he could not save any of them, and how can he-

He hadn’t liked that it came so close after he death, but it had given him focus, bringing him back into the present, into his duties, in time for Mace to respond with a tentative plan.

Which involved, apparently, electing himself and Qui-Gon Jinn to interim positions on the High Council, granting them official authority to make decisions on behalf of the Order as a whole.

“Mace!” Qui-Gon protests, for the third time, sputtering. Any other day, and Ben would have smirked to see it. Defying the Council, Master Jinn did not balk from, but joining it…

_Ha_.

“Are you certain you wish to elect me to such a position, Master Windu?” Ben inquires, giving Qui-Gon a short look to hurry up and _compose_ himself. The other man glares back at him, though a faint flush does rise to his face. Qui-Gon was an incredibly competent Jedi – in the field. He did not do so well when it came back around to actually having to explain himself; not because his reasoning was not sound, but because he found it tedious and time-consuming and he had a certain instinctive reaction to criticism that stemmed from his contentious relationship and history with Master Dooku.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Master Windu questions.

Ben lifts a brow and sighs. “As I understand it, Master Windu, my reputation is contentious at best with the Temple and the Order at large. I suspect my appointment to such a position would not inspire much confidence.”

“Our fellows will simply have to deal with it, Master Naasade.” Mace replies dryly, acknowledging his concern with a grim acceptance. “At the moment, your competence outweighs their confidence.”

“Lovely.” Ben replies flatly, trying and once more failing to be amused.


	15. Chapter 15

“He _what_?” Healer Che demands sharply, as the retrieval team settles a limp twi’lek initiate on a bio-bed.

“What _did_ he do?”

Vokara jerks, startled, and whips around to point a warning finger at Master Naasade’s chest. _By the Force_, she hadn’t even sensed him coming up behind her, and she curses the muffling quality of the laser hood over her lekku. He lifts his hands a little in a gesture of harmlessness, but doesn’t look at all apologetic.

“According to my retrieval team, Padawan Vos _healed_ her.”

Master Naasade’s brow’s furrow. “The Dark Side doesn’t heal.” He mutters, looking thoughtful. A hand comes up, no doubt to stroke his beard or brush back his hair, but his fingers come in contact with the laser hood and stop there, drumming on the seal.

Vokara crosses her arms. Strictly speaking, neither does the Light. True Force Healing could be used to accelerate the bodies ability to heal itself, that was true, could even bolster a spirit into clinging to life when all reason says they should not live, but the Force could not simply erase wounds or dissolve sickness. And sickness especially was trickier than healing a wound. A wound felt like a wound, in the Force, and the body and spirit cried out to be healed. Illness was trickier than that, one organism feeding on another, scattering sparks of decay and damage, but harder to grasp, harder to treat.

Even an illness like this, something _designed_ for ill-intent. The virus itself behaved as its nature demanded, neither good nor evil, though its making _was_ of malice, and that making left a taint in the Force where the sickness corrupted the body, like a sheen of oil on water. It could be sensed, by the very astute, but it still could not be wholly separated.

Except…

Vokara observes the results. Aaylas’ecura is in shock, her nervous system overwhelmed, her brain waves indicating deep unconsciousness, her musculature and cardiovascular systems unusually stressed, but she _was not sick_.

“I didn’t heal her.” Padawan Vos rasps, staggering up to them after pushing off the healer trying to escort him to sit down. He was bright eyed and jittery, and yet still barely able to stand upright, exuding cold and contemptuous satisfaction and _exhaustion_. “I didn’t have to. The Dark Side,” He says gleefully. “ doesn’t heal. But it destroys.”

“You destroyed the virus inside of her?” Vokara clarifies in shock, bordering on disbelief.

“Quinlan, you could have _killed_ her.” Master Naasade says sternly.

“She was already _dying_.” The kiffar padawan spits, immediately aggressive. “_I_ wasn’t going to just let that happen.”

Naasade draws himself up and back, something ugly and dangerous passing over his face before he ruthlessly grinds it down. The kiffar’s eyes flash with something like victory, and the Mandalorian master gives him a dark, short tempered look as he nods tightly.

It’s not, apparently, enough, and Vokara can see the Fallen padawan gearing himself up to dig in to whatever wound he just opened, and intervenes.

“Padawan Vos, if you aren’t about to fall flat on your face, I’d like you to repeat whatever process you just performed on contaminated blood samples.” Vokara states, earning the abrupt and intense focus of two very different and very intense individuals. “If we can replicate-“

“You can’t.” They both retort, before she can even finish.

“The Light Side can’t do what I’ve just done.” Quinlan sneers. “It doesn’t have the power.”

“It has a different nature.” Master Naasade corrects sharply.

Vokara absorbs those statements, and their certainty. “Very well.” She nods. “Then I need you to do so regardless. If it comes right down to it and we don’t have a viable cure – you may be our only option to save lives, and I need you to be a little better at doing so. Which means training. Immediately.”

Aggression and glee descend sharply into stark terror on the young kiffar’s face, and pained grievance turns abruptly into firm support as Naasade reaches out to place a bracing hand on his shoulder.

“I -I - you can’t _trust_ – you _can’t_ trust me.” The teenager protests.

Vokara does not quite have the human knack for it, but she arches a brow regardless. “And what compelling reason do I have not to? You’ve just saved the lives of one of my patients, Padawan Vos.”

“I could have killed her! I _almost_-” His panic is engulfing, flooding out in frigid, acidic waves, and Master Naasade yanks him around and draws him into his arms, and, in the Force, contains the violence of his emotions completely, both sheltering him and sheltering everyone else _from_ him. Vos struggles, trying to shove out of the Master’s embrace, but Naasade redirects a punch and traps and arm and then pins the teenage in a hold, so that he can’t fight him.

“The Dark Side is destructive. It is patient, and it always wins.” Master Naasade murmurs, the quiet tone amplified by the laser hood’s comm system. “You’re in the well of the Dark Side, Quinlan, and it’s winning. Are you going to fight me? Or her?” He jerks his gaze towards Vokara, who is watching in a kind of rigid expectation. “The Dark Side is going to _win_, Quinlan, and _you_ are the Dark Side. Who is _your_ enemy?”

Yellow eyes gleam, and narrow. “One day it might be you.” The teenager spits.

Naasade flashes a bitter smile. “One day, perhaps. Today?” He inquires.

The kiffar teenager growls, shoving against the other human, who releases him. “Not today.” Vos mutters.

Naasade looks to Vokara expectantly, and she sighs, thinking there is something deeply, _deeply_ wrong with that man, something she is neither equipped nor prepared to deal with today, and takes charge of the slightly more ameniable padawan.

~*~

Fay laughs, full of rue. “Young man, I have been outside the cloister of a temple for over six hundred years. You cannot put me in a position of authority. For all my many years, I have no viable experience nor a relevant understanding of the responsibilities you are requesting I undertake.” She admonishes gently. “I can advise you, if you wish for my wisdom, but in truth, I am a stranger here, and my ignorance of your way of things will do you more harm than good.”

Over the comm, the very young de facto Head of the Order sighs. “_I understand, Master Fay. Thank you_.”

“Do not sow such doubt in yourself, young master.” Fay says. “The Force is with you, and so are your people.”

She does not doubt that he feels lost, perhaps ill-prepared, and it is only natural to feel that others may be better suited, but while Fay might find joy in teasing the very serious young Councilor, she has the sense that he is fulfilling the role he is meant to have.

And Fay is fulfilling hers. Yoda is very old, and the sickness is taking it’s toll. She will do what she can to bolster his strength, and she has no intentions of leaving his side until they are through this, or not.

~*~

Slowly, sector by sector, they are relaxing the quarantine to allow people to return to their living quarters as they are screened and cleared of the virus. Those who are not cleared, they direct towards the Halls for isolation, observation, and treatment.

Those who have been encamped outside are eventually reached, and allowed in.

Most of them, at least.

“Just…don’t let anyone else pilot my ship?” Obi-Wan asks awkwardly, going over the cockpit controls with Shmi, given that they were all labelled in Mando’a.

Shmi offers him a quiet, indulgent smile. “They are hardly inexperienced.” She says lightly.

“It’s not that.” Obi-Wan replies, looking slightly guilty. “It’s who you’re going with. This ship was a gift from the _Mand’alor_. I’m pretty sure it’ll be a smoking crater if Fett ever finds out I lent it to Master Dooku.”

Shmi frowns slightly at that. “Do you trust Master Dooku?” She inquires sincerely, aware of the discord surrounding Master Dooku and Padawan Vosa and all things Mandalorian.

“I do.” Obi-Wan reassures her. “But I trust him as a Jedi. Not as a _Mando’ade_.”

Shmi nods. She understands, in a way few would. There is much she too has to balance, between being a Jedi, and being _Amavikka_, and that balance is not always perfect, and rarely fair.

Shaak Ti and Master Dooku, along with their padawans, have been assigned to track the Temple’s Bacta shipment back to Thyferra, to determine and gather evidence regarding, if they can, the origin and perpetrator of what they suspect was a biological attack.

Without specific evidence, and without proof, making an accusation of tainted Bacta, even in defense of themselves, could destabilize the whole system of Thyferra, a system the Jedi just recently assisted through a violent economic crisis, and the cost of that assistance had been high, on _all_ sides. Their assignment was high profile and dangerous on several fronts, and Shmi prayed to Ekkreth for luck and Leia for strength.

Shmi was a woman of her people, be they _Amavikka_ or Jedi, and for once, when they had been struck, she was given the chance to _fight back_.

“I will not let them pilot your ship.” Shmi promises. “Unless our lives are in danger.” She adds, because she feels she must. Obi-Wan nods, and Shmi gets a taste of relief from him through the Force, his face obscured by his helmet.

“I’ll make sure Ani and Jax are safe.” Obi-Wan promises in turn.

“They always are, with you.” Shmi says with certainty, regretting that she cannot see the flush that no doubt creeps up his ears at the compliment. He hedges his balance from foot to foot.

“I’m lucky I didn’t get them sick.” He says, sounding worried, making sure his gloves were sealed to his vambraces, and his helmet to his collar. Shmi thinks he frets, perhaps, too much. Most of her Jedi friends did, in fact.

_What does marrat say_?

“Do not focus on your anxieties, Obi-Wan.” Shmi repeats the adage, though her nose crinkles a little, as the words seem to her a tad vague and not entirely an accurate lesson. One must, after all, occasionally focus on those thing, else they will grow beyond all control.

“Really, Shmi?” Obi-Wan huffs. “From _you_?”

“It is what our teachers tell us.” She teases the boy gently. “But I will tell you this: you are best when you act as you believe you must, Obi-Wan, and not as you believe others wish you to. I trust you.” She says with feeling, and reaches out to pull him forward, though he balks, as she presses a kiss to the top of his visor.

He is not a son to her, not a child needing looked after, but someone she has supported and who has, in turn, supported her. A brother, perhaps. Shmi has never had a brother before. But she loves him, and ultimately, that is more important than titles and definitions.

_Embarrassment-awe-comfort_ glow from him in the Force, and Shmi smiles for him, though he stumbles a little when she pulls back and stops holding him by the helmet.

“You…er…” he shuffles, and she does wish she could see his face. “There’s a smudge on my visor.” He mumbles, rubbing at the top of the dark lense.

Shmi draws on her sleeves and buffs the mark away, warmed to the core, knowing full well he was using a technical display on the inside, and not the visor itself at the moment.

“_Thank you_.” He breathes out, soft and resolute and for far more than a smudge. Shmi nods and he collects himself a little better, less a sheepish young man and more the promise of a force to be reckoned with. “Force be with you on your mission, Shmi Skywalker.” He murmurs, well aware that they are going _looking_ for a Jedi killer.

Shmi nods, feeling the sentiment settle deep in her chest in a way it truly hasn’t before, all her repetitions never quite making it feel less stumbling on her tongue, less _foreign_.

“The Force be with us always, Obi-Wan.” She replies. “And Ar-Amu’s blessings too.”

He presses his fingers to his heart, then to the bottom of his helmet, over his mouth, and Shmi offers an arm in the Mandalorian way, and the both of them feel the brittle, uncertain tension in the air crack and bleed off as they falter awkwardly, both _trying_ to pay respect to the other, and finding the other uncooperative.

“Go find Ben, Obi-Wan.” Shmi chides, shooing him off to take his worries elsewhere as hers where quite enough on their own. “He’s sure to be in trouble.”

“He’s not the one going looking for it.” Obi-Wan snorts. “Be – be safe, Shmi.”


	16. Chapter 16

“Healer Che, if you have a moment.” Essja Chias calls absently, bent almost double over magni-scanner in the sampling lab, the holo display around him densely packed with information and far more alert markers than seems reasonable.

Chief Healer Che pauses, and nods, striding over to his table. The Halls are both busier and quieter, now that some order and direction has been established and they know which direction they’re moving in, and she can spare him a moment. Ni Hiella’s former padawan has performed above and beyond his duties today.

“I don’t know what I’m looking at, but it looks awful.”

“Master Naasade’s biological samples.” Essja informs her dryly. “They always look awful.”

One of the bio-hazard disposal units beeps in affirmation of that comment.

“He’s one of our patient zero’s, isn’t he?” Healer Che inquires, peering at the display and wondering how the younger Healer reads it, but then, she supposes that Pantorans do have a sharper visual acuity than Twi’leki do. Twi’lek rely much more on their superior senses of hearing and spacial awareness.

“Yes, and no.” The younger Healer stands up straight, winces, and then carefully stretches, massaging the unhappy muscles in his back. Healer Che isn’t surprised, given the way he was hunches over like that.

“I thought it was said he passed the illness to his padawan?”

“Padawan Kenobi actually contracted it first-hand. He was exposed to the tainted Bacta.” The younger Healer informs her, something inscrutable and troubled passing over his face. “I was just comparing their samples.” He pauses, and seems to change his mind about something, shaking his head slightly. “Anyways, Master Naasade.” He focuses, gesturing to the display clogged with alert markers. “I was particularly concerned about him being a carrier because – well, his entire genetic code is a mess. Once we discovered how this thing learns from its hosts, I was concerned about what it might pick up from his system.”

“And…?” Healer Che inquires, now concerned herself.

The pantoran healer offers a thin, sharp smile. “And his system chewed it up and spit it out. His version of the virus is essentially defunct. As best I can tell, it tried to replicate while borrowing from Naasade’s damaged RNA and the mutations just…destabilized. Strictly speaking, he’s still carrying the virus, but I don’t think it’s viable enough to present a hazard to anyone he might come in contact with.”

Healer Che frowns, considering that information with a furrowed brow. “He’s remarkably lucky, then, but I wouldn’t advise him to reduce his protective measures just yet.”

“That wasn’t what I was thinking.” Essja shakes his head. “And since Obi- since his padawan brought him his armor to change into, I think he’ll be content for awhile.”

As the Healer’s have had to deal with a certain measure of uncomfortable chafing in their hazard suits, they both envy the Mandalorian jedi a little for his better fitted and more comfortable gear. As of yet, the healers are still taking no chances in reducing their own protective measures, not until they’ve finished clearing the temple and established proper contaminated/decontaminated zones to work around.

“So what were you thinking?” The twi’lek healer asks.

“The only cases of resurgence we’ve had are those infected who were then exposed to Bacta- to the uncoded provirus, right?”

“Yes.” Healer Che nods, as she hasn’t heard otherwise.

“So once you have the virus, you can’t get it again from a different carrier – even a carrier with a more aggressive version of the same strain.” Healer Chias points out.

Che catches on. “So if we can’t develop a cure – or a proper vaccination, you’re thinking we can deliberately infect healthy patients with a passive version of the virus to prevent them from catching an aggressive one.”

“Exactly.” He nods.

Healer Che breathes in deep, and lets it out slowly, patiently. “There are several thousand systems where that kind of medical improvisation would land you directly in prison, Healer Chias. Even _if_ it worked.”

“The Jedi Order – strictly speaking - constitutes as its own sovereign system.” The younger Healer says resolutely. “And we aren’t one of them.”

Vokara Che narrows her eyes and mutters to herself; “Ni Hiella, what the _kark_ do you _teach_ them…”

“Healer Che?” Healer Chias asks.

“I’ll…keep it in mind, Healer Chias. Thank you.” She nods. “But unless you can reverse engineer the process, that only covers one species.”

“I’ll see what we can do.” He replies earnestly.

_Dark Force not-healing and pre-emptive infection_, she thinks wryly. _At least we have options_.

~*~

Mace watches Ben Naasade stride into the room in full Mandalorian regalia, head instinctively towards a chair, and then halt, holding himself back, before he turns to Mace and Plo for an invitation, and something critical clicks into place.

_Oh, you karking thrice-damned son of-_ Mace thinks vindictively, mind reeling. _That man was a Councilor!_

Mace wishes that Ben hadn’t checked himself quite so quickly, that Mace would have gotten the chance to see which chair, specifically, he’d been moving towards, to give him some idea of the position he’d held on the Council.

Masters Rancisis, Fisto, Sifo-Dyas, and Koon all take their usual seats. Mace reluctantly places himself in Yoda’s chair, as Head of the Order – _interim_ \- Knight Gallia respectfully positions herself next to Master Rancisis, Qui-Gon perches himself on the edge of Madame Nu’s usual seat – she elected, at this time, to remain in the Archives, and manage the data and communications systems for the Temple - and Naasade…Naasade, with a silent hand gesture and equally silent permission from Master Koon, chooses to take Master Yaddle’s seat, as she had delivered herself to the Healers, where she felt she was more direly needed. Their padawans elect to hover near to their masters.

Between Koon, Naasade, and Gallia, they manage to bring everyone up to speed on the situation as it stood – the dispatch of Master Ti and Dooku to Thyferra, the current state of the quarantine, the current casualty and fatality reports, and the overall status of the Jedi currently in the field.

“A biological _attack_?” Master Sifo-Dyas repeats, brows drawn low. “An attack of this scale against the Jedi – that may as well be a declaration of war. But who _could_ do such a thing?”

“The Order is hardly without it’s enemies.” Qui-Gon points out. “Though I admit… it’s troubling how _effective_ this pandemic was. The Order as it stands is all but crippled.”

“Which is going to turn our public image – what’s left of it – from uncertain to outright negative.” Knight Gallia says grimly.

“How so?” Master Fisto inquires.

“Much of the galaxy approved of our financial separation from the Galactic Senate.” Gallia reports, which they knew. “This situation – this plague of ours, it’s a sharp, hard blow, but our allies have been both sympathetic and quick to rally behind us, in spite of the … collateral damage, on worlds we unwittingly brought this sickness to. However,” She pauses, looking young and tired for a moment before gathering herself, anchoring to her foundations like bedrock, her presence a blazing corona that does not falter. It bolsters the whole Council, that steadfast strength. “ sympathy will soon turn sour, if we, for all our trying, fail to deliver. The Jedi made a promise to the galaxy, a promise we reaffirmed when doubt _was_ called over our recent actions. A promise we are in danger of breaking. Too many of us are out of commission, We cannot answers the pleas for aide, we cannot adequately perform our duties, and fulfill our responsibilities.” She breathes in, brimming with defiance. “This could crush us.”

“It won’t.” Naasade says softly, with a sort of quiet, calm certainty that makes you _believe_, whether you want to or not. A soft, quiet calm that was completely at odds with the fist clenched so tightly his armored glove was creaking under the pressure, and Mace wondered with a sort of dread what his eyes looked like, under that impassive amber visor.

“What do we do?” Master Fisto proposes, lest they sow the seeds of their own doubt in the waiting in between.

Mace looks around the room, matching gazes with all of them, and watching possibilities flicker around all of their edges, probability folding in and in and over itself. “That is what _we_ are going to figure out.” He informs them bluntly.

They glance around at each other thoughtfully, warily, gazes catching on the empty seats, on the expectant looks on the faces of the padawans – well, two of them, at least, as Kenobi’s helmet obscured his expression.

“For now, I believe it would be pertinent to keep as many Jedi as possible inside the Temple, to lessen the risk of-“

“Wait.” Mace holds up a quelling hand, because he’d been listening to Mater Rancisis, but watching Naasade, and both Naasade and Kenobi had reactively twitched at the recommendation the moment it was said, as if finding something about it inherently wrong. Truth be told, he hadn’t quite liked it either, and Knight Gallia hadn’t looked pleased.

“Yes?” Master Rancisis inquires patiently.

Mace frowns, not quite sure how to voice that disquiet feeling, and delegates the vocalization to Master Naasade with a pointed look. Both Naasade and Kenobi lean back a little, as if affronted by the sudden lobbing of authority in their direction, or perhaps by the implication that they were somehow to _blame_ for his pause.

“We should do exactly the opposite.” Naasade finally says, sharing a quick look – going by the titling of their helmets – with his padawan. “Anyone still in this Temple who is not infected – get them out.”

“And send them where? Corellia does not have our rate of exposure, but the virus is present there as well, the same with Jedha and half the smaller outposts.” Jedi were quick to visit each other, if the opportunity presented itself, and the new regulations regarding the manpower required for missions paired them together more often than before. They saw more of each other, and that had made this situation all the worse.

“So don’t send them to the other Temples.” Padawan Jeisel proposes, earning a raised brow from her master, who then cast the Council with a defensive look as if they might disparage the suggestion.

“_Elaborate_.” Padawan Tachi mutters, leaning towards her friend and being far less discreet than she probably hoped.

“Knight Gallia says that we are about to fail the galaxy. We can’t let that happen.” Padawan Jeisel states emotively. “So send everyone we can to the field. Cancel classes and lessons, and put us out there, to do what we were meant to do. And those who can’t go on mission…” She pauses, gathering her thoughts under the not insignificant scrutiny of the emergency council, and glances at Padawan Kenobi. “What about the abandoned Temples?” She proposes, sounding half curious about her own suggestion. “The Kenobi Report mentioned over two hundred Temples. Surely some of them can be reclaimed?”

“They would…. still technically belong to the Jedi Order.” Master Sifo-Dyas acknowledges. “Abandoned or not.”

“And practical experience is just as valuable as class studies.” Qui-Gon points out in support of her argument, but then, Qui-Gon was always at his best in the field, and expected everyone else to be the same.

Mace presses his hands together, fingertips brushing back against his lips as he considered their suggestions.

“The ill would have the most resources here on Coruscant, and their situation would be greatly improved without the risk of infecting others.” Master Koon remarks.

“I’m concerned at the available personnel for such an endeavor. Not for fieldwork, necessarily,” He concedes. “But for management. From what I understand, uninfected padawans and younglings far outnumber uninfected knights and masters, and I am unenthused at the idea of sending roving Padawan Packs-“

Master Naasade flinches, and Mace tries to ignore it, wondering what _that_ could possibly be about.

“ – across the galaxy.”

Master Rancisis makes a warbling, ticking sound low in his throat. “We are, I think, falling into old habits.” He remarks.

“Master Rancisis?” Master Koon prompts further explanation.

“We are relying on our own insularity, and forget – there is more to the Jedi now. That is our great endeavor, is it not?” He tips his head towards the padawans. “I see that this approach has merit – but perhaps we should step back from our focus on ourselves as Knights and Masters. Where do Jedi typically go, when they cannot stay here?” the thisspiasian master croons, luminous eyes alighting on the padawans.

Padawan Tachi tilts her head with a frown, puzzling that out. “The Corps?” She suggests, but scowls when the serpentine councilor nods agreeably. “That’s not where _Jedi_ go.” She protests. “That’s where we’re sent when you tell us we _can’t_ be Jedi.”

“_Siri_.” Knight Gallia admonishes.

“She’s not wrong.” Padawan Jeisel remarks in her friends defense, earning her own Master’s sharp look.

“But we _are_ trying to change that.” Padawan Kenobi intercedes, stepping forward to mediate without hesitation at the mere idea that their might be discord among them. “Being a Jedi _isn’t_ an occupation. It’s a way of life. There is no less nobility in being a farmer, or a teacher, or a mechanic than there is in being a diplomat, or a negotiator, or a peacekeeper. And there is no one who can tell us what we can or cannot believe. We are one with the Force.” His own ire touches his voice, a trace of bitterness not entirely forgotten. “Whether the Temple chooses to teach us or not, that can’t be taken away.”

Naasade clears his throat, and while his padawan clearly _acknowledges_ the admonishment, he doesn’t back down an inch from the stance he’s taken.

“I am corrected.” Master Rancisis concedes amicably, nodding to Tachi and Jeisel. “Well said, young Kenobi.” He adds.

Admonishment doesn’t bring the teen to heel, but the praise certainly has a quelling effect as the padawan ducks his head. Naasade sighs hopelessly at his Padawan.

Mace scans the room, and the thoughtful, if troubled expressions he sees.

“Well?” He prompts. “Sending our Jedi into the arms of the Service Corps _does_ have merit. Is that something this council can agree upon?”

_This council_. The words spark attention, a settling of burden, an uptaking of responsibility that changes the shape of the air, and they all look at each other a little more clearly.

Mace receives quiet affirmations from all sides – and a disgruntled look from Qui-Gon that he returns with narrowed eyes – and sighs. “Well then, we need to find out which of our Corps representatives have been cleared from the Halls, if any, and work on a plan to actually proceed in doing so. Padawan Tachi, if you could establish that request with the healers?” He nods and she nods sharply back, in a manner very reminisce of her master. “Good. Now, what else?”

“Well,” Master Naasade tips his helmet, leaning forward and delveing into planning with ease and no small amount of eagerness. “ to make this work, the first thing we’re going to need is -“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: someone tell me if I just made an offence to medical science.
> 
> Also, watched episode 1 of the Mandalorian and I don't think the voice in my head has stopped screaming yet. I'm a little confused and a _lot_ excited.


	17. Chapter 17

“You know, I’m fairly certain I just escaped this place.” Master Naasade says dryly, unbuckling his vambrace in preparation to let Essja prod and poke and probably stick him with a few needles.

Essja, for his part, glances nervously at the impassive face of the amber visor of the beskar helmet. Naasade pauses, tilts his head, and then removes it.

“Something bothering you, Healer Chias?” The mandalorian jedi inquires softly, setting the helmet aside. He was hardly in danger of infecting the pantoran, after all.

Essja offers a tight, polite smile, half grimacing. “Nothing relevant, Master Naasade.”

“So something _is_ bothering you.” Naasade points out.

Essja fidgets, and takes the opportunity to look away, prepping his equipment. He just needed a few more biological samples, and hopefully they could extract something slightly more stable out of Naasade’s defunct strain of virus, allowing them to essentially inoculate others, if necessary. With a bit of tweaking.

Using a live virus as an inoculation was an incredibly archaic practice, and far riskier than modern methods. There was much that could go wrong, and he was going to be exceedingly careful on this.

If he could get his mind _off_ the other thing.

It’s none of his business, really. He shouldn’t bring it up. He should _not_.

“I hadn’t realized you and your padawan were related, Master Naasade.” Essja says quietly, guiltily. It was an odd age gap for humans, the Healer thought, but looking at them – really looking at them (or, well, their IdentPass profile images, at least) – he wonders _how_ he hadn’t realized the Master-Padawan pair were siblings, as similar as they appeared. Did the Council know? They had to know, Essja thought.

Naasade, for his part, goes rigidly still, gaze fixing on Essja’s as something in the Force twists sharply with warning. _From_ Naasade. The younger Jedi swallows tightly and takes a polite step back, exuding calm reassurance as best he can, because Essja _meant no harm_.

After a moment of tension, the oppressive pressure in the Force draws back, and Naasade glances away. “Ah.” He remarks passively, everything else about him hidden away, as obscure as he’d been when they first met.

That doesn’t stop Essja from noticing the white knuckles of his tightly clenched ungloved fist.

“_You_ know.” Essja points out the obvious, quiet and calm and polite, keeping his hands away from his instruments. “But _he_ doesn’t, does he?”

“He does not.” Naasade confirms. “And _you_ are _not_ going to tell him.” He instructs, a clear and present warning in his voice.

Essja swallows, nodding in submission to that. He wonders if that’s a stipulation of the Council, how Naasade gets away with training a member of his own family, treading against the warnings of attachment, or if it’s something else. If there’s something Naasade is afraid of, in that revelation.

Having quickly learned his lesson, Essja doesn’t ask.

~*~

“Guess I’m going to Bandomeer after all.” Sian says pragmatically, reviewing the orders pinged through to her comm. They were assigned to help the creche organize the younglings for transport offworld as the masters continued to assign duties as rosters were released from the Halls of who could go and who could not. Sian, being unafflicted, would be chaperoning one group of them. _Without_ her master, who was afflicted, though he had yet to display symptoms.

“Is that where you were slated to go?” Siri inquires. “AgriCorps?”

“Yeah.” The devaronian nods.

“Me too.” Obi-Wan says, tugging on Sian’s elbow when she tries to take the wrong corner on their way to the creche. Sian looks up with an odd smile. “What?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Maybe we were always destined to be friends, then.” She says simply, making him blink. He wonders if that were true – hopes it is. Maybe a different path would not have been so dreadful to imagine, if they were still friends.

“Wait, _you_ were slated for Agricorps?” Siri scowls, eyeing her armored friend. “That would have been a terrible idea. If you had to go, I’d have thought you’d end up in the EduCorps.”

Obi-Wan shrugs, glad the matter was moot, and then feels guilty for being glad. He can’t argue for the merit of another branch of service, and then personally disparage it, not if he wanted his arguments to _mean_ anything.

“Where would you have been assigned?” Sian asks the other girl. “Do you know?”

“ExploraCorps.” Siri says dryly.

“With your math marks?” Obi-Wan snorts.

“Shut up.” Siri snaps defensively. “You probably couldn’t make EduCorps because _your_ marks are below average. _I_ score exceedingly well in pilot training.”

“Siri!” Sian scolds, iridescent blue eyes flashing.

“She’s fine.” Obi-Wan mutters.

“That wasn’t nice.” Sian retorts.

“Siri _isn’t_ nice.” Obi-Wan points out. “We like her anyway.” He adds, nudging the shorter girl until she stops glowering at him and glances away sheepishly.

“I – can’t argue with that.” The blonde mutters. “And don’t touch me, you’re infected.” She adds sharply.

He laughs, but dances a step away. “I’m sealed in my armor, Siri, you’re perfectly safe.”

“You got _Taria_ sick.” Siri points out, and then blanches a little, because that _really_ wasn’t nice to remind him of. She didn’t mean to be cruel.

“Yeah, but he was _kissing_ Taria.” Sian points out, breaking the abrupt tensions and sidling around Obi-Wan so that she’s walking between them, hoping to buffer them from each other because they are, apparently, just going to _be like this_ today.

“What?” Siri stops. “_What_?” She repeats, incredulous.

Obi-Wan shakes himself a little, breathing out tension and turning back incredulously towards his sharp tempered friend. Sian preens a little, grinning between them. “You didn’t know?”

“_Sian_.” Obi-Wan protests.

“I can’t believe this.” Siri says.

The way his helmet tips, Siri can tell he’s just given her a short, grumpy look for that comment. Siri points at him accusingly. “You’ve had your first kiss. _You_. You’re – you’re – you’re literally the most _awkward_ person out of all of us.”

Sian looks up thoughtfully. “That _is_ kind of true.”

“I am not!” Obi-Wan protests. “Tsui is more awkward than I am.”

“Tsui’s quieter than you are and that is not the same thing.” Sian teases.

“Well… _fine_.” Obi-Wan says mulishly. “But at least I don’t turn red every time Quinlan _smiles_ at me.”

“Obi! We’re _not supposed to mention that_.” Sian gripes, punching him in the arm. “We agreed!”

“Seriously? I hate you two.” Siri turns a little red _now_, crossing her arms and pointedly looking away.

“It’s _adorable_, Siri!” Sian swears brightly, tugging on the other teenagers sleeve. “Even if it _is_ Quinlan.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Quinlan.” Siri and Obi-Wan both retort.

Sian just grins slyly at the pair of them, dancing back until they are all moving again, the two human padawans grudgingly following as she leads the way.

“Left turn. Sian – _left_.”

~*~

“I understand the mission to Thyferra was difficult and drawn out.” Master Dooku remarks. “But do we truly believe they would have so blatantly retaliated?”

“The planet has no issue with us. The Stark Combine – rather, what used to be the stark Combine - is another matter. They have no love for the jedi and no hesitation to resort to violence.” Master Ti replies. “But I do not believe that the perpetrator is in the system.”

Dooku leans back, frowning, and his padawan leans forward, intrigued. “Do you think this mission is a waste of time?” Padawan Vosa inquires.

“I did not say that.”

“Then please, speak _plainly_.” Master Dooku invites waspishly. The togruta master gives him a focused, flat look, one she knows has often discomfited her fellow masters. He is, however, resolutein the face of it, which speaks either to his character or his acting ability. 

“The blame falling on Thyferra; does it not seem…convenient?”

“As opposed to?” Padaan Vosa prompts sardonically, while her masters eyes narrow at the implication, the intrigue. Shmi knows her master does not mean to seem coy, to appear to vague, but it is a trait she shares with Master Naasade that often…grates.

“This attack comes right on the cusp of the greatest change made by the Jedi Order in six hundred years. Just as we are discovering how vulnerable we are, just as we are set to revitalize the Order, we are beset by a crisis which has crippled us, which will, if we cannot find treatment for this illness, decimate our already dwindling population.” Shaak Ti says blatantly.

“The Jedi have been dwindling for hundreds of years.” Padawan Vosa points out, brows lifted, washed out blue eyes fixed on the togrutas shining silver ones. “This attack came out of nowhere. Are you suggesting they are connected? That this is, what?” The padawans lips curl, almost a sneer. “Some kind of _genocide_?”

Her maser stiffens.

Shaak Ti’s montrals hum, low and reproving. “I am saying you should not so easily discount the possibility.”

The bitter look slides off the padawans face, and the young woman blanches. “Shite.” She mutters, looking back to her master.

“And who, Master Ti, would you suggest could be behind such a plot?” Master Dooku inquires lowly, looking grave.

“I have no suggestion.” Shaak Ti replies carefully. “I have no _proof_.”

The two jedi masters stare one another down, and after a moment of this, Padawan Vosa slides off of her seat and leans in next to Shmi. “I think our _venerable elders_ are trying to talk over our heads.” The other woman murmurs dryly.

Master Dooku cuts her a glare – because she was hardly making an effort to be _discreet_ \- breaking his stalemate with Master Ti, and the blonde gives him a sharp, coy smirk.

“Master Ti,” He inclines his head. “ we shall keep your observations in mind. That is… a troubling line of thought.”

Master Ti tips her montrals in acknowledgement, and the four of them fall into an unsettled quiet.


	18. Chapter 18

Mace leans back in his chair, both grateful and baffled, and eyes Ben Naasade with suspicion.

“Not that I am not relieved to have this process have been so expedient,” Mace remarks, rubbing his brow with one hand and tipping his palm out questioning with the other, “but how in the hell do you _just happen to know_ how to codify, transport and relocate nearly ten thousand people _in a day_?”

It was one thing to perform refugee evacuations, when the goal was to get as many people on a ship and off a planet as possible, but this – parting and parceling them out, deciding who should be sent where, how to allocate them, how to supply them, without once losing track – and Naasade had been very strict about making sure they accounted for every single individual – Mace was thinking in a dozen different directions, trying to figure out ways to develop a useable system to accommodate their needs and Naasade simply _built it_ while they conversed, no questions asked.

Ben laughs, a dry, good humored sound. “My skills appear to have deteriorated, Master Windu. I used to be able to deploy a simple ten thousand by the _hour_. But then, the troop regiments were designed to make that easy.”

“What?” Qui-Gon inquires, looking troubled.

“I served as a General in a wide-scale conflict.” Ben replies simply, telling the truth without really telling the other master a thing at all.

“Jedi are not meant to be soldiers.” Qui-Gon remarks stiffly, a scowling brow reflected back at himself from the helmet’s amber visor. “Though perhaps you think differently.” He adds, gesturing to the mandalorian’s armor.

“No.” Ben replies, his own tone turning stiff and a little snippy. “Jedi are _not_ meant to be soldiers.”

“Gentlemen.” Mace remarks, eyeing them both. “You are not instilling me with a great desire to leave this Temple in your hands if you cannot manage _five minutes_ without offending each other.”

“We are _fine_.” They both insist, in the exact same tone, and Mace is doubly unsure of leaving Ben with his old Master and whatever wounds that relationship so clearly still holds for him. “There is no need-“ They both break off, giving the other a hard look because they are speaking _word for word_. And apparently it irritates them as much as in unnerves Mace.

_Good_, he thinks snidely. Part of him doesn’t want to leave the Temple under their care – partly pride and partly concern – and another part of him thinks that they just _deserve_ each other.

“Your transport to the archival outpost of the EduCorps on Christophsis is already arranged, Master Windu.” Ben says, in that tone that _insists_ he is the most reasonable and placating person in the galaxy, and _really_, he has everyone’s best interest in mind. The one that makes you feel foolish if you don’t listen to him and feel like you’re walking into a trap if you do. “Padawan Cladu and Squall Clan are, in fact, waiting on you.”

Mace frowns, sighing. To make sorting simple, the council had elected to identify and sort envoy’s by their initiate Clans, which left them with a fairly balanced mix of elders to younglings through all the different groups, albeit they were vastly outnumbered by the younger generations of jedi.

Under the cordially polite and slightly terse back-and-forth suggestions of Naasade and Gallia, they then managed to spread the destinations of those ‘Clans’ as evenly across the galaxy as they could.

Which is how Mace found himself heading to a post on the Outer Rim with six archivists, two dozen padawans, eight younglings, and two infants. The infants had been a sticking point, but it was Master Koon who had insisted that the infants of the creche should not be outside of the protection of a Master, and so, well, each Councilor must also do their part. Mace included.

“The longer you remain,” Qui-Gon reminds him. “The longer we – the healers included – have to wear these hazard suits. By mercy, Mace, all will be well. Just _go_.”

“This feels like running away.” He mutters. _Or abandonment_. He does not like to feel the Temple so empty, so bereft. It sends a chill down his spine and aches in his soul, especially with Naasade just sitting there, like an ill omen of someone else’s intent.

“Retreat is not surrender, Mace.” Ben says, with the sincerity of a man who has done both, and Mace looks up at the familiar use of his first name, for once not tainted by the awkwardness of two men trying to ignore the fact that both of them were not whom the other wanted them to be. “The Jedi _will_ return.”

Mace nods, taking comfort in Ben’s solid refusal to allow for any other outcome, and proceeds to transfer his authorization codes into Ben and Qui-Gon’s hands, cedeing control of the Temple.

“The Temple better still be standing when I come back.” He warns.

Qui-Gon gives him an unamused huff of affront, and Naasade offers a jaunty two-fingered salute.

~*~

“Easy, Vos.” Healer Ni Hiella grips his shoulder, hard, while Quinlan backs away from the biobed, feeling like he can fly and yet barely able to stand. His body trembles, head throbbing, stomach growling, but his blood his singing in his veins, energized by a pounding heart and the electrifying awareness of everything around him, all puling waves of energy, of pain and potential right at his fingertips, like he could pull a strand of it and watch the world dance, or crumble-

“Drink this.” A canteen is pressed to his lips, and he gulps on instinct, and then gags and retches. She’s already got a bin for him, when sour bile crawls up his throat.

Quinlan coughs, spitting up, and shoves the canteen away.

“You’ve got to be able to keep water down, Vos.” The zeltron warns him.

“I don’t need it.” Quinlan snaps, his throat burning, his stomach clenching, the dry fire and the hungry, gnawing ache extending through body and into the world around him, keeping him focused, fueling his senses. Water doused the fire, food dulled his senses. Made him weak. He didn’t need them, not when he felt like this, not when it was so easy to just sustain himself on the energy flooding through him, on the discord in the air, and the destruction.

“Drink it, or you’re done, Padawan.” She says sternly, pressing the canteen back at him, and Quinlan snarls.

“You can’t stop me.” He shoves, and she snaps across the room, but catches herself, leveraging into the Force and shoving back just in time to smack her hand against the wall without actually being slammed into it. He grins, because he felt her flash of fear, the sting of pain in her palm, the exhaustion in her breath, and she’s no different than all the rest, all he has to do is pry at it, and she’ll-

She draws in a long, slow breath through her nose, settles herself, and Quinlan flinches as _feeling_ fades out of the world, the empath pushing all emotions beyond his reach. The Force quiets, and Quinlan falters.

She lifts a sharp brow, strides back across the room, and holds out the canteen. Quinlan takes it with a shaking hand and lifts it to his lips with a grimace. It still takes him a minute to convince himself to take a sip and swallow. It’s lukewarm and clean and he lifts the canteen, washing the _bitter-sour-hot_ taste of bile off his tongue, and he gulps again.

“Easy, Vos.” Healer Ni Hiella repeats herself, meaning something entirely different this time around. Quinlan slows down, lowering the canteen and licking his lips.

It’s… rough. Using him as a last-second save for patients on the brink, but they’ve made it work. Healer Ni Hiella calms the patient’s minds, soothes their pain away into unconsciousness, and then Quinlan does his work under her watchful eye. There’s no screaming, no writhing in agony, as he roots out the illness and wreaks precise destruction, not like there was with Aayla. Master Yaddle had guided him through focusing his Force technique, and Healer Ni Hiella the medical science while he practiced on contaminated blood samples, and it had been frustrating and far less rewarding and then, well, then someone was seizing, someone was dying, and they made a choice.

And it paid off.

And it kept paying off.

It’s not harmless, what he does. They come through with blood clots and bruising, cramping, phantom pain, and overtaxed nerves, in physical and Force shock, but they come through, so Quinlan, as far as Quinlan is concerned, is winning.

She hands him a nutrition bar next and the thought of trying to eat it makes him want to cry.

“They’re not _that_ bad.” Ni Hiella nudges him.

“The Dark Side,” Quinlan mutters miserably, crinkling the packaging on the bar. “ fripping sucks.”

The Healer snorts, gently taking the bar back and tearing it open when his fingers fumble and fail to do so. “That’s generally the consensus, I do believe.”

It doesn’t smell like much, a little like powdered vitamins and something nutty, but it still makes his stomach roil. Quinlan hasn’t eaten all day. He knows that, knows that he needs to eat, that his body is burning more energy than he’s got to give, that he _needs_ to eat, because he is starving himself, and he just – can’t. He can’t. He can’t bring himself to do it. He _hurts_.

He doesn’t want food. He just wants to hurt someone else.

Angrily, Quinlan breaks off a piece and shoves it in his mouth. It crumbles, soft and a little creamy as it warms, and Quinlan tries to swallow, tries to force it down and – can’t. He coughs and spits it out, acid burning up his throat again.

He slams his hand against the wall, chucking the bar, curses, and slams his hand against the wall again. Ni Hiella pulls the bar back up and to her hand with the Force, letting out a small sigh as it disappears into a pocket. “We’ll try again later.” She says.

Quinlan looks at her, eyes burning. “I’m not going to get better, am I?” He asks, voice raw. “Everyone keeps trying. They’re so…_hopeful_, but I’m not going to get _better_, am I? This is – this is the _rest of my life_.”

To her credit, she doesn’t look sorry for him when she answers that. Pity is dangerous, after all.

“Better is a relative term.” She says plainly. “You’re never going to be who you were, no. None of us ever really are who we once were – that’s life. For better or worse. But I don’t think who you are is as bad as you feel it is, Quinlan Vos.”

“Really?” Quinlan scoffs bitterly.

“_Really_.” She repeats forcibly, putting a firm hand on his shoulder again. “I know you suffer. I can’t know how much, but anyone with a brain and two ounces of sense can see that you _struggle_ with this. And you win.”

Quinlan chokes. “I _don’t_-“

“Don’t you?” She presses, looking him in the eyes that no one else quite ever wanted to meet. She lifts her hand to rest on his head, like he was a youngling of eight and not a young man of eighteen. “I don’t know what your war looks like in here, but what is so bad that you have actually _done_?”

“I hurt people. Without thinking about it. Without even meaning to, sometimes, I just – do it. Just to hurt them. Just to see them hurt. To feel it.” This is nothing he hasn’t told Healer Kala, nothing they haven’t gone over and over a hundred times, but for some reason it’s so much worse saying it now. “People who trust me. People I swear I’d never-“ He feels so _weak_.

“I could tell you you’re hardly the only one.” Healer Ni Hiella remarks, one brow twitching wryly. “ but I think you need to hear something else. You’re right.” She says.

Quinlan stares at her, lungs tight in his chest, terrified and exhilarated because all the little voices are whispering _see, see, this is who you are, just accept it, just give in to it, it’ll be so much easier just to_-

“You hurt people. You hurt them today, and you hurt them _badly_.” She says bluntly. “ And you saved their lives, and _that_ – that, _no one else_ could do today.”

_Oh_.


	19. Chapter 19

“Alright Master, the last of the transports has gone.” Obi-Wan reports, striding back into the Council Chamber with his helmet tucked under his arm. “Though I think Knight Gallia made made an officer at the CorSec Traffic Authority cry. They didn’t sound too good when she was done with them.”

“Was there a problem?” Ben inquires lightly.

“It sounded like there was a hiccup regarding some of our traffic privileges.” Obi-Wan replies, frowning. “Whatever it was, she got it resolved.”

“Of that I have no doubt.” Ben murmurs, thinking it very likely that Knight Gallia _would_ drive an unfortunate Traffic Controller to tears.

Obi-Wan snorts, and Ben removes his own helmet, offering his padawan a quirk of a smile, settling his helmet on one knee, and resting his forearm on its dome. The sky is rapidly growing dark outside the windows, casting the room in low light, and he can feel the emptiness inside the Temple, the quiet. The Healers are instituting their own tagging system – allowing those who are first and second generation carriers to leave the Halls now that all the uninfected are gone, keeping those worse off for monitoring and treatment.

But still, they make only faint sparks compared to the usual fierce glitter of life in the Force inside these great walls.

“I don’t know where your thoughts are going, Master, but you should take them somewhere else.” Obi-Wan says in a sort of lighthearted concern. “You’re starting to feel melancholy.”

Ben chuffs, and his padawan smirks a little. He’s done well over the last few days, Obi-Wan, and Ben is exceedingly grateful of his steadiness and sensibility.

_He’s growing again_, Ben notes also, looking his padawan up and down. The armor adds a disguise of breadth and solidity to his frame, but his face is getting thin again, and while Ben can’t see where the cuffs of his sleeves and pants ride, his shirt and tunic are pulling in places under his armor that should be loose, no doubt restricting his movement more than it should.

Even so, he looks at ease in his armor, comfortable, proud of himself, and the shape of him burns against the world, warm with the light Ben can see in his eyes.

“I’m proud of you.” Ben remarks sincerely.

His padawans good humor abruptly morphs into sheepish confusion. “Er…thank you, Master.” He mumbles, flush with pleasure and embarrassment, and Ben laughs, moving his helmet aside so he can rise from his seat and stride up to tug on Obi-Wan’s padawan braid.

“I mean it.”

“I haven’t really done anything?” Obi-Wan remarks, shrugging a little.

“Who said you had to?” Ben chides, resting his hands on his padawans shoulders – and ruefully acknowledging that it won’t be long before they’re of equal height, and not long after that before Obi-Wan is taller than him.

“It doesn’t really have to be _said_, does it?” Obi-Wan points out.

Ben shakes his head, a little rueful that perhaps Obi-Wan picks up too many of his habits. A discomfort with idleness being one of them.

“I’m proud of _who_ you are.” Ben clarifies, just as warmly as the first.

His padawan shuffles a bit. “I’m just Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“And Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Ben remarks dryly, letting his hands slide free and not trusting that oh-so-shining look on the younger’s face. “ is being deliberately difficult.”

Obi-Wan’s expression cracks, and the teenage grins a bit. “Just a little.” He smirks. “It’s not every day a padawan gets a compliment, you know. We have to really press our advantage when it comes.”

“Oh really?” Ben lifts a brow, crossing his arms.

A little teasing is worth it, for Obi-Wan’s smile.

Ben _is_ proud of him, and fond, and it no longer aches to feel like that. The young man before him is his own person, a _good_ person, and there is so much brimming promise in him.

“_Ni cuy’jaati, baji’buir_.” Obi-Wan finally breaks, ducking his head. _I am honored_.

“_Te ijaat cuyir pal’vut, verdibir_.” Ben replies, opening their bond so that Obi-Wan truly _understands_ that. _The honor is mine_.

“You can – stop that.” Obi-Wan mumbles, shoulders hunching up, face turning red, slightly overwhelmed at the intensity of Ben’s regard.

Ben shrugs.

Ben has made that mistake so often, of remaining silent, distant, reserved, and it has cost him – too much, every time. With Healer Kala’s assistance and support, he isn’t going to make that mistake again, not with Obi-Wan.

“I suppose we should put our armor away.” Obi-Wan comments, once he’s recomposed himself, looking around at the empty Council Chamber. “There’s no real excuse for it now.”

“I propose we don’t.” Ben replies.

“Master, there’s no risk anymore, and you know the Council doesn’t like it.” Obi-Wan sighs.

“At the moment, padawan, I _am_ the Council,” Ben reminds him cheerily. “ and you’ve earned the right to your _beskar’gam_.”

Obi-Wan pauses, looking thoughtful, and then he side-eyes his master. “They _really_ left you in charge?” He questions, with an utterly unfair tickle of incredulity, Ben would like to note.

“Myself and Master Jinn.” Ben corrects.

“Uh-huh.” Obi-Wan remarks skeptically. “Because that’s _so_ much better.”

“You know, Obi-Wan, the support and enrichment is supposed to go _both_ ways between a Master and Padawan.” Ben says dryly, reaching over to tug his padawan braid again – just a little _less_ fondly.

“I am a _font_ of support and enrichment, Master.” Obi-Wan protests. “I’m just saying.”

“Well, say it inside your head.” Ben mutters, crossing his arms once more.

‘_Like this_?’ Obi-Wan projects, oozing smugness to match his cheeky grin.

_Well_, Ben thinks to himself, _if that’s how he’s going to be_. “Tell me, padawan, how is your sand exercise coming along?” Ben inquires, moving to fetch his helmet and leave.

Obi-Wan falters a little, caught off guard. “What? You’re worried about that now? Aren’t there – I don’t know, more important things to worry about?”

“At the moment, our crisis is well in hand, and I don’t know about you, padawan, but there is little more work for me to do today. As I understand it, your classes are cancelled, which means, surely, you _must_ be at loose ends.” Ben says loftily, letting a grin slip over his face with his back turned to his student.

“Master, _really_?”

“Really.” Ben comments over his shoulder.

Obi-Wan – _growls_, stomping after him.

~*~

“He’s only sleeping.” The golden Master Fay says softly, the seemingly young woman curled up in a chair at the lowered bedside of Master Yoda.

Apparently, she had had enough of him looming in the doorway.

“Qui-Gon Jinn, yes?” She inquires, mist grey eyes gleaming in the gently lit healing room.

Qui-Gon nods.

“Interesting.” She remarks offhand, drawing a puzzled, slightly uncomfortable look, for which she smiles. “You are his grandpadawan?” Another nod. “So you would be… my great-great grandpadawan, I do believe. My apologies it’s taken us so long to be introduced.”

“We’ve been occupied.” Qui-Gon remarks. “These are busy days for the Jedi.”

“We should never be too busy for our own.” She replies, bittersweetly.

“I’m fairly certain ‘service’ is a tenet of the Jedi Code.” Qui-Gon teases dryly, shifting in discomfort at the wist in her tone. “To put ourselves before others is anathema.”

“And yet putting others ever before ourselves has led to our current predicament, has it not?” She challenges wryly. “As in all things, there must be balance, young one.”

Qui-Gon chuffs. It has been a long time since he has been considered _young_, she being his great-great-grandmaster or not. Qui-Gon steels himself, and steps into the room. It has always been his flaw to turn away from the weakness of those he respects. His master had appreciated that quality, as Master Dooku could not bear to be witnessed in a lesser state, but with others it was different, a stubborn internal refusal to acknowledge that those he upheld could be weak, or frail, or failing.

But Master Yoda was more than just his grandmaster. Master Yoda was, as with all younglings, one of Qui-Gon’s first teachers, first councilors, and no Jedi ever truly outgrew that urge to flock to the tiny wizened master’s unflinching kindness and gentle wisdom, knowing that there would always be succor there, always something that felt more deeply of _home_, when they felt scared or lost.

Qui-Gon could, if forced, confess that today he _had_ been scared, to see all his fellows so stricken and laid low, to be placed in the middle of it all, to bear witness.

Master Yoda looks very…helpless, limp against pale blue sheets, ears laid low, the lines of his face deep and unanimated. His breath came at a low rasp, and even his presence in the Fore felt subdued, though Qui-Gon could tell that Master Fay was lending him strength that way.

“Keep fretting, and your anxiety _will_ wake him.” Master Fay scolds quietly.

“I thought – if he has only a first generation of the virus…” Qui-Gon trails off, uncertain. He was no healer.

“It can still turn against its host, if their health declines. The pain and suffering of our people brought him low.” She explains softly. “And he is quite old.” Her lower lip trembles faintly to confess that, a sheen in her eyes, and Qui-Gon feels – _sorry_, for her.

_Young one_, she called him. What were his some forty years, to Yoda’s excess of eight hundred? And what where eight hundred years, to a woman who has lived more than twice that, and may yet live twice that again?

“Can Padawan Vos not-?” Qui-Gon inquires, still leery but pragmatically accepting of that particular solution.

“They don’t want to risk the stress of that treatment if they don’t have to.” Fay replies. “He isn’t dying.” She insists, holding one small, claw-tipped hand in hers.

Yoda grumbles in his sleep.

“Likely he’ll pull through just to scold us for being so _sentimental_.” Qui-Gon mutters.

She puffs a laugh. “He was a crotchety old man from the cradle, you know. Fixed in the idea that severity and pretense would absolve him of the indignity of his diminutive stature.”

“I can imagine.” Qui-Gon chuckles.

Fay lifts a golden brow, her smile bright. “Just so. And he took such delight in ravaging the same severe pretense in others, dragging them kicking and screaming into humbleness to level the playing field.”

“He _still_ does that, and I assure you, there _is_ no level playing field with Master Yoda.” He informs her. “He soundly outdoes us all.”

“Oh?” She remarks slyly. “I’m sure he’s convinced you of that.”

Qui-Gon shrugs, and Fay shakes her head, running a featherlight touch fondly over a wrinkled green brow, earning the faint twitch of an ear.

“I remember he was very sweet, for all his complaints and troubles.” She says. “ When one took care not to mention his sweetness, at least.”

“I could hardly imagine Master Yoda as a youngling.” Qui-Gon shakes his head.

“Cutest child you ever could imagine.” Fay remarks gladly. “To his immense frustration. There is a great deal of suffering to be had,” she informs him with tacit dryness. “ in being over one hundred years old and the first thing anyone does when they meet you is _coo_.”


	20. Chapter 20

“Um…” The twins both pause, turning to glance at each other in flawless sync, and then uncertainly back to Sian. “No?”

Sian glances from one pastel blue gaze to another, the mikkian initiates both remaining very serene, though they feel _anxious-sorry-worried_ in the Force. Sian sighs, looking around at the densely leafed saplings spreading out all around them.

Tiplee and Tiplar are interesting, to say the least. The twins shared the same pastel blue eyes and lips, but Tiplee was red-skinned, with short head-tendrils and a strong focus of the Living Force, whereas Tiplar was yellow-skinned, with long head-tendrils, and a less certain focus for the Cosmic Force. Despite their differences in both appearance and personality, the twins were very close – a fact that tended to dissuade most potential master’s, apparently. They were very close to reaching the traditional age limit, though that was less frightening in these changing times for the Jedi.

So Sian found them interesting, and sympathetic. She just wished they were also more _observant_.

“How are we, Padawan Jeisel?” Master Fisto calls, striding up between the rows of carefully nutured saplings, barefoot in the dirt, his pants rolled up to the knee, wearing a loose sleeveless tunic. He seems to be enjoying his reprieve from the Temple, grubby-handed and enthusiastic – perhaps more so than some of the AgriCorps service members appreciated, as he had a tendency to get in their way. Sian had to admit it had been funny to watch the Jedi Councilor take an abashed scolding from a thirteen year old chalactin girl when he’d overwatered her bed of seedlings.

“Missing the baby!” Sian calls back, turning with wide swing of her arms to gesture to the dense field of saplings.

Eyes like dark glass widen at the exclamation, and he looks around the field. “Oh.”

Behind him, Technician Fora’s – their (Master _Fisto’s_) unnoffficial babysitter and official guide - dark head whips up, her springy hair fanning a bit before it settles. “Excuse me? Tell me you didn’t just say what I think you said.”

“She didn’t just say what you think she said?” The twins offer, and Master Fisto nods with an innocent smile.

Fora looks between them in disbelief, and then mutters a prayer. “_Force be with me_.”

Sian agrees with her wholeheartedly, because the acclimation of Temple Jedi with their Service Crops counterparts was perhaps not so smooth on the Temple’s part, but the devaronian padawan is a little distracted.

She glances at the twins, and she glances at Master Fisto, and she starts to get an _idea_.

But first, they need to find the baby.

~*~

“ -_omise anything glamorous, but we’ve got tents prepared for your arrival_.” Master Tahl says, her unbound hair frizzing in several different directions and a smudge of what is possibly ink on her cheek. “_It’ll be good to have you back here, padawan, and I dare say you’ll find it more agreeable_.”

Bant blinks at that remark, because she’d liked Ossus – well, the exploration, the discovery, the new – well, old, very old but new to her – knowledge. But that dusty, stale atmosphere had been rough. “Oh?”

“_We’ve had nothing but fog for weeks_.” Master Tahl says cheerily. “_It’s quite damp_.”

Bant smiles, and all her compatriots wedged into the little communications compartment with her all look to each other in mild dismay.

“Did she say tents?” One of the girls – Leska, Bant thinks, murmurs quietly. Bant tilts her head, and then narrows her eyes. Her master _had_ said tents.

“Master, what happened to the kit barracks?” Bant inquires, remembering distinctly the crates being delivered for the mobile housing structures the ExploraCorps wanted to put up, just before she was sent back to the Temple. The ExploraCorps were attempting to expand their expedition their into a real outpost, once it had been discovered that much more appeared to have survived the cataclysm than previously thought.

“_There was some unfortunate miscommunication as to where they were meant to be built_.” Master Tahl replies, a slightly twist to her mouth. “_They were stood up in the southeast quadrant instead of the southwest_.”

“But the southeast quadrant wasn’t seismically stable.” Bant points out.

“_Well, now it is_.” Her master replies gamely. “_It’s just four hundred feet lower than it used to be._”

“Was anyone hurt?” Bant asks, concerned.

“_No, but G9-S21 still hasn’t forgiven us for taking four days to dig him out_.” The noorian jedi replies. Bant burbles a little at that, because it wasn’t like her master got along with the geological survey droid _before_. Her master and droids just did not go well together.

The display glitches, and whatever her master says next is swallowed by static.

“Is that on her end or ours?” Padawan Keeto inquires.

“I don’t know.” Bant frowns, trying to adjust the frequency. Initiate Paratus pushes up beside her, moving sliders and tuning the array much more effectively. The little Aleen boy frowns, looking up at her.

“Solar activity?” He proposes questioningly. “Something is interfering with the signal.”

Bant turns towards the others to propose they all head back to the common area, and hopefully they can ask one of the ExploraCorps technicians for assistance, when something – _twinges_, in the Force.

_I’ve got a bad feeling about this_, Bant frets.

~*~

“Ylar!” A greying caamasi master skips down a flight of pale stone steps to meet them on the bridge to the landing platform, striped fur longer and more bronze than golden, like Healer Kala’s.

“Uncle Vyos.” The younger caamasi jedi greets warmly, soft snout twitching. She turns to her charges. “Padawan Iune, Initiate Sei’lar, younglings, meet Master Healer Vyos. He facilitates the MediCorps program here on Spintir, in the Dawn Temple of Recovery.”

“Greetings, Master Vyos.” The younglings all bow.

“I thought we were supposed to get away from the sickness?” Etain pipes up, tugging on Anakin’s shirt as if it might make her taller to do so. The caamasi’s ears flick softly, dark eyes focusing on the tawny haired girl.

“The Healers and doctors here treat a different kind of injury and illness, little one.” Master Vyos explains gently. “Those less easily healed than ailments of the body.”

“Like Traumatic Stress Response?” Codi Ty inquires tremulously, the chubby little togruta tugging nervously on his stubby lekku. Anakin perks up. “Like Ben!” The blonde adds.

Master Vyos looks inquisitively to his niece, who nods. “Like Master Naasade, yes, though I am able to treat him at his own Temple. But some patients need far more help, and this Temple offers them a respite from the rest of the galaxy, where they can focus solely on their treatment and recovery.”

“Are we going to be okay?” Etain inquires, looking at her friends. “We don’t want to be _disruptive_.”

“Quite the contrary,” Master Vyos replies. “Our healers are eager to have your assistance.”

“We get to help?” Anakin perks up, Jax bouncing on his toes beside him.

“That _is_ the idea.” The older jedi smiles.

~*~

Padawan Tanwaze, the energetic black skinned twi’lek padawan, snickers and slaps his hands over his mouth, trying not to. He looks apologetically at Siri, who gives him a warning look, and at Tsui, who sighs.

Pausing on his way back to the terminal, Padawan Cladu, a little despondent about being separated from Madame Nu, looks over the three of them uncertainly. Siri lifts her brows at the nautolaun, and the older padawan sighs, shaking his head.

It’s a harmless game, really.

The objective is simple – if Master Windu puts down one baby, make him hold the other one. The longer he holds the baby you handed him, the better off you are in the game. They haven’t worked out exactly what the winner gets, yet, but the amusement has its own worth.

Tsui gives her a low-lidded, smug look, and Siri scowls. Unfortunately for her, he’s winning.

At the central data terminal in the archive, Master Windu currently has Ekria – a little blue haired barolian girl – in his arms, awkwardly trying to rock the baby whilst also attempting to coordinate in person with Professor Juul and over holo-comm with Master Naasade.

To their credit, Siri is fairly certain both Professor Juul and Master Naasade have caught on to the padawan’s mischief, and neither of them has pointed it out to Master Windu, who treats the babies like they’re high explosives.

Padawan Cladu delivers the datapads that were asked for, and Master Windu passes him the baby like the hand-over is an order, and, not knowing what else to do, the nautolan takes the girl. He’s clearly inexperienced, because the first thing he does is lay her on his shoulder- which isn’t wrong, exactly – but it puts his head-tentacles right in her reach, and the first thing she does is _pull_. Padawan Cladu winces.

“Alright, Mog.” Siri whispers, the little green toddler burrowed against her side. “You’re up.”

He grumbles, turning and blinking up at her with his intensely deep eyes, offering a quiet complaint. She resists the urge to pet his fluffy black hair, because that was a good way to get bitten. And he had _sharp_ teeth.

“Padawan Tachi.” Master Windu frowns as she approaches – and he’s done nothing but frown at Siri since she appeared on his transport, but that was because he was convinced that Master Adi sent Siri along with him as a minder. To be fair, those were Siri’s exact instructions.

“Master Windu, Professor Juul.” Siri bows, accidentally squeezing Mog a little when she does, eliciting an irritated squeak. “Is there any way we can be of more service? We seem to be a little superfluous as archival assistants.” Siri inquires, simply holding Mog out to Master Windu as she speaks, and he takes the youngling on reflex. It’s only after Mog is settled in the crook of his ar that he realizes what he’s done, and his eyes pinch in exasperation. On the holo, Master Naasade has to look away because he’s grinning, and luckily Master Windu doesn’t see him out of the corner of his eye, turning to Professor Juul as he is.

“Part of the hope of our redistribution was further integration between the Order and the Corps, Professor. Is there some assignment you can give them?”

The Professors pursed lips twitch, not as schooled in blank passivity as a Temple Jedi, and he takes a moment to reply.

“Well,” he proposes consideringly. “ there is a program here on Christophsis which has applied for our assistance, and we’ve been hard pressed to fulfill their need given our limited resources, but if you are willing…”

“We are.” Tsui insists, appearing under Siri’s elbow and really, _really_ lucky she didn’t hit him in the face for startling her like that.

“Please!” Padawan Tanwaze adds, rushing up behind.

Professor Juul nods. “There’s a Refugee Reclamation Center here on Christophsis. Many of the individuals come here seeking aide, often former slaves or unaccompanied minors with poor literacy. We’ve been asked to assist with helping improve their skills in a primary language and in assisting them in understanding and making use of the resources available to them. If we could partner you with some of our own for the rotation, I think we would all be gratified by the improved results.”

Siri and Tsui share an intrigued look, and then both turn imploringly to Master Windu for permission.

“Consider the assignment approved.” The councilor nods, looking a little relieved himself.

“_Yes_!” Padawan Tanwaze grins.


	21. Chapter 21

“_So what seat did you hold on the Council_?” Mace inquires abruptly, in the gap between Knight Gallia signing off and either of them disconnecting. It’s late – very late, now, though to be fair to Knight Gallia, it was very _early_ at her current location. For Ben, it was several hours past the night bell, and Obi-Wan had finally fallen asleep after getting progressively more insistent in his mental tapping, citing medical prerogative that he keep somewhat of a stable schedule.

Ben had been up early to check in with Chief Healer Che and be briefed by her on the current standing in the Halls. Healer Chias had then taken the opportunity to have him scanned again, drawing more blood samples. Ben had spent the rest of his morning entertaining ill and restless younglings. His afternoon and evening, he and Qui-Gon had spent in the Council Chamber, touching base with the other Temples and Medical Centers dealing with the illness, and then Knight Gallia had comm’d to deliver a briefing on the current status of assignment for Jedi in the field.

And to report that Master Koon and his charges had lost contact and failed to arrive on Ossus as anticipated.

Then there was some incident involving a group of padawans and the water in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and Qui-Gon had taken the opportunity to escape the headache Mace, Ben, and Gallia were giving each other by going to deal with _that_ issue. Cancelling classes was necessary given their predicament, but leaving the younger generation in the Temple at loose ends all day was not, it appeared, a tenable solution.

“I suppose it was too much to hope you hadn’t noticed that.” Ben admits ruefully.

Mace snorts. “_You keep the simplest things secret, Ben, and yet the damnest ones you let slip. So what position was it_?”

“That’s not so simple.”

“_Ben Naasade_.” The young harun kal growls.

“I’m not being intentionally evasive.” Ben placates.

“_You _exist_ to be intentionally evasive_.”

Ben offers the other Councilor a dry look. Mace remains unimpressed.

“The formation of the Council as it existed in my time is not what you know today, and I am not speaking only of the people sitting in it.” Ben explains, and stops there. There is much, he understands, that Mace _wants_ to know, some he _needs_ to, and little he _must_ know. Ben tries, as best as he is able to judge, to offer up only the latter, to keep himself out of a position wherein they rely too much of his insight, worth less and less every day. Ben could not save the Order in his time, and he does not believe he can save it in this one either. He has learned from his mistakes.

But they can save themselves. All he has to do is give the right people the chance to do so.

Mace sighs exhaustively, and Ben can’t help the smile that creeps up. Perhaps, he considers, it is _his_ turn to offer up an olive branch in their tentative friendship. “You were Head of the Order.” Ben offers.

“_Of course I was_.” Mace mutters begrudgingly, and Ben smirks.

_“It’s a hell of a thing.” The harun kal had commiserated, over awful liquor from an engine room still. “But it’s why I was handed the job.”_

_“You earned it.” Ben had said, jostling his arm and taking the canteen from his fingertips, taking a a swill himself before passing it back with a cough._

_“I used to think that.” Mace huffed. “Before.” _

_Everything in their lives was cleaved cleanly into two now. Before the Wars. And Now. Was it only just two years they’d been out here in the mess? Only just two years? It felt like lifetimes It felt like who they had been where just strangers now._

_“That wasn’t earning it. That was just.. that was playing a game. This… I feel like I’m earning it now. Earning something I’ve already got.” The other mans sighs, pressing a palm hard against his brow, eyes squeezing shut in pain. “And I don’t want it.”_

_“Mace…” Ben sighed, weary and full of sorrow and gentle chiding, a light reminder that he understood, he did, but they _could not_ falter_.

_“We need to end this war, Obi-Wan. We need to win.” Mace murmurs tiredly, taking a swig and grimacing. _

_“We will.” Ben insists, though the insistence sounds worn out._

_Mace nods, but in the way of a man who wants to believe it, not in the way of one who does. He takes another grimacing drink and passes the rough alcohol back to Ben, whose stomach churns and who drinks it anyways. Mace’s hand lands on his shoulder, gripping hard, for balance, for guidance, for comfort. _

_“Then when we do, I’m done. I’m done, and I’ll curse you with the wretched title.” Mace says sincerely. “Obi-Wan Kenobi, Master of the Order. That’ll be a day. That’ll be a good day.”_

_“Don’t you dare.” Ben coughs. Ben had known he was being groomed for the position, but then, so was Gallia, before her death. Just in case one or the other didn’t survive. It was just another contingency plan, another grim necessity. Not something he actually anticipated having. Ben tried not to anticipate too much, these days._

_“You’ve more than earned it. No, you deserve it.” Mace insists, gaze startlingly clear and focused, his grip fierce. “I trust no one better.”_

“I sat…” Ben thinks back, picturing it in his mind, but the memories all focus on who was absent, more than who was there. His body knew the way better than his mind did. “three seats to your right.”

Mace looks askance, considering. “_I could see Obi-Wan rising to the Jedi Council_.”

Ben startles, and then gives the other master a stern look. “Do _not_ get any ideas, Master Windu.”

“_What_?” Mace retorts. “_He’s the burning star of his generation. I think it would suit him well, in time. Perhaps he’d even become-“_

“_Don’t_ put that on my padawan.” Ben growls, and Mace cuts him a sharp look, and Ben flinches when he recognizes that flash of insight in the other mans eyes. _Damn_.

He looks at Ben, really looks at him, and swears.

“_You weren’t just a Councilor, were you_?” He mutters, gaze boring through him even in holo. “_Let me guess, I named you Head of the Order Elect_.”

Ben stiff expression is answer enough, and Mace swears again, shaking his head. And then his focus snaps back up and he _glowers_ at the older man. “_You did _not_ have to return the favor_.”

Ben chuff a startled laugh. “You _deserved_ it.” Ben insists. “There was no one better.”

~*~

“Hey.” Obi-Wan says softly.

On the bed, a pillow shifts and a golden eye peeks open. Taria groans and flops upright with a wince, shivering slightly. “Hey.” She mumbles back.

Obi-Wan shuffles in the doorway. “Sorry.” He says.

She blinks blearily a few times, and then stares at him, squinting a little against the light coming in behind him.

Then she snorts and tosses her pillow at him. “You _dork_. I don’t blame you.”

Obi-Wan catches the pillow and tucks it under his arm, ducking his head. “I did get you sick.”

“It was hardly intentional.” Taria rolls her eyes. “Now give that back.”

Obi-Wan carries the pillow back to her, and she tucks it against her stomach, folding her arms over it. Obi-Wan leans against the edge of the bio-bed.

“You know…” Taria comments thoughtfully, reaching over to trace the shape of the Jedi sigil on his pauldron appreciatively, the _beskar_ whispering under her touch. “… I’m _not_ dying, but it _would_ be one _hell_ of an epitaph.”

Obi-Wan has nothing to offer to that but confusion, and she laughs. Her face is flush with fever, but she glows with more than that, and he relaxes into her presence in the Force, just a little. She pushes him with her knuckles when she catches him trying to feed into her energy. “Stop that, I don’t need it.” She huffs. “Honestly. Anyway- I mean, think about it:” She clears her throat, a little raspy. “’She went, but she took Obi-Wan Kenobi’s first kiss with her’.”

Obi-Wan thinks Sian would have laughed, but he’s still discomfited by the fact that Taria is infected with a biological warfare agent, and it’s _his fault_.

Taria’s giggle subsides, and she groans at him. “Hey, if I’m not upset about it, you aren’t allowed to be, okay? I feel like the sixth level of hell right now, and your sad face isn’t helping.”

“Sorry.” Obi-Wan says again.

“_Stop_.” Taria groans, flopping back against and dragging her pillow up over her eyes. It lasts a moment, and then she moves it, so she can look at him. “Worth it.” She winks.

Obi-Wan’s brows furrow; _worth wha_\- and then he gets it. “_Taria_.” He groans, feeling a flush creep up his neck, his ears turning red.

“Oh, come on.” Taria teases. “Let me have that. It’s like – my ace achievement. My Idiot’s Array. Who’s gonna top that? Someday, you’re going to be one of the greatest jedi in the galaxy, and I’m gonna point at your handsome face on a holo screen and say ‘See that guy – that guy right there is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I was his first kiss’. I’ll be the envy of the galaxy, and lord it over all the lesser beings.” She grins brightly, her blue-green hair sweat-stuck to her forehead.

Obi-Wan sighs, running a hand over his face, offers a dry smile. “I suppose I ought to let you have that, then, as recompense for the trouble, if nothing else.”

“Oh, the trouble was worth it.” She assures him. His dry smile softens into something sweeter, and Obi-Wan steps forward, leans down, and presses a dry kiss to her damp brow.

Her breath hitches a little, and he takes hold of her hand.

She blinks, and blinks, and scowls. “That’s so not fair.” She mutters, turning her face into her pillow. “I’m serious. I feel awful and you are just- ugh.”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi?” He teases.

“Stupidly perfect.” Taria grumbles, her expression twisting with real frustration. Obi-Wan backs up, concerned, and she squeezes his hand.

“Taria?” He questions.

“I really like you, you know.” She says. “But sometimes, I’m also really jealous.”

“Of - me?”

“You’re just – better, than the rest of us.”

“I’m not.” He swears, shaking his head. “I’m really not.” He insists, upset by the idea that anyone might think they were somehow less than he was. “Whatever it is you think I have that you don’t, you’re wrong. I just – you have everything that I do. I think I just – got to a certain point faster.” Obi-Wan shrug self-consciously. “My master pushes me, and he never really stops.”

Taria snorts. “That’s it? Just – work harder?”

Obi-Wan’s expression twists, trying to shape his argument. “Not exactly? Just – don’t try to make yourself ‘better’ by trying to be _me_. Work towards being a better _you_. Taria Damsin,” He grins. “I’ll have you know, is pretty great. Awesome. Amazing. _Totally_ worth the trouble.”

“Yeah?” Taria challenges, her grin a little weaker.

“Yeah.” Obi-Wan nods, remembering something Shmi told him, before she left. “So be who you are, and not – not who you think others want you to be.”

Taria sighs. “That’s a tall order.” She huffs.

Obi-Wan shrugs, squeezing her hand.

Taria stares up at the ceiling for a quiet minute, settling her thoughts, shivering as her fever shifts. She lets out a breath and turns her head. “Hey, Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

He lifts a brow. “Yes, Taria Damsin?”

“Are you gonna kiss me?” She drawls, a little raspy. “I mean –“ She shrugs. “ - you can’t get me any sicker.”


	22. Chapter 22

The youngling in the basin looks up at them with wide blue eyes and coos, offering up tiny, muddy green hands.

“No.” Sian insists, crossing her arms. “You are in _so_ much trouble.”

Barriss blinks innocently, a leaf caught in her dark tufts of hair, and keeps reaching for her.

“A little more dirt and I’m sure she would have sprouted.” Gle, one of the AgriCorps service members in training, says cheerfully, approaching with a spray attachment for the faucet on the basin. “I had to borrow this from the kitchens, sorry it took so long. Our recruits are usually a little older.” He jokes. “They don’t have to bathe in the sink.”

“I’m sorry about the saplings she uprooted.” Sian says, again, helping him fix the attachment to the faucet.

“They look fragile,” the three-eyed gran shrugs. “But they’re hardier than you think. They’ll be replanted and I’m sure they’ll thrive. You can help if you’d like. I’m sure Technician Fora would appreciate that.”

Sian winces a little, shaking her head sheepishly. “We _really_ don’t mean to be such a bother.”

Gle clacks his teeth, which for a gran was pretty similar to a huff. “You’re no more trouble than _any_ new recruit. I’m not sure I’d trust Master Fisto in the bio-engineering labs, but there isn’t actually all that much harm you can do in the fields.”

Sian laughs. “He’s happy to be here. We really appreciate it, with everything that’s going on.”

“Hey, we’re all of a people.” Gle says simply, turning the water on. Barriss whines, trying to grab the spray, clapping her hands and splattering muddy water everywhere. Sian lurches, gently holding the youngling still, for all that she kept trying to scoot under the faucet.

“I would have come here.” Sian admits, plucking the leaves out of Barriss’s dark hair. “If I hadn’t been chosen as a padawan. At the time I didn’t feel like I could belong anywhere but the Temple, but… I think maybe it would have been good here too.”

“You’re pretty strong with the living Force.” Gle comments. “So I think you would have done well here too. I was the opposite, in a way.”

“You wanted to come to the AgriCorps?” Sian inquires. “Rather than be a Knight?”

“I wanted to be both.” He admits. “But - well, you should have seen the havoc I wreaked on the gardens as a youngling. You could say I was a bit like Master Fisto – _too_ enthusiastic. I used to keep a collection of little vials of dirt from all the different gardens, and I kept trying to replant things – which was not the best idea, considering I was not replanting them in anywhere near adequate environments, but….” He shrugs. “I enjoyed the science of botony more than saber-play or navigation or cultural literacy. I was actually rather relieved when I got my assignment. That was a lot of pressure off my back.”

“Oh.” Sian says, trying really hard not to spray Barriss in the face, but the toddler was so _wriggly_. Gle tries to hold the tiny mirialans hands, but the youngling just giggles and waves them around. “Do you work in the labs, then?”

“Yeah.” He smiles, revealing flat teeth.

“Up-up-up-_up_.” The youngling insists, trying to climb out of the basin.

“Not _yet_.” Sian insists back, earning a tiny, adorable frown. And then big sad eyes. Oh no.

“We’re actually working on developing a crossbreed of Uru Wheat right now to help the system of Ryloth. The native species has developed a blight, so their staple crops are significantly under yield. The Agricorps has been delivering relief rations from our own crops, but –“ He pauses, gnashing his teeth.

“What?” Sian inquires.

“We’re fairly certain that they’re not being properly distributed by the government of Ryloth. We’re still making the shipments, but… it feels like we aren’t actually helping all that much, if the people aren’t getting the supplies.” He says bitterly.

Barriss whimpers, looking between them, sensitive to the shift in mood, and Sian finally picks her up. She’s mostly clean, at least. A statement Sian revises slightly when a beetle comes crawling over her ear. Sian looks to Gle, trying to project reassurance for the both of them.

“We do what we can.” She consoles him.

~*~

“Captain, we appear to be under pursuit.” Master Plo Koon states.

“Yes.” Captain Ghok replies simply, as the ship lurches and the Kel Dor has to grab his seat-back for steadiness, a red headed toddler lounging on his other arm.

“We’re aware.” Navigator Qiss tosses over her shoulder. “Honestly, it was about time.”

“This happens _often_?” Padawan Keeto yelps, hurriedly buckling into the safety straps on the bench, with the rest of the younglings and padawans.

“Captain! They’ve got us.” An engineer shouts from the rear.

“Krayt Spit.” Captain Ghok growls, the trandoshans nostrils flaring.

“_Got_ us?” Bant repeats, one hand on her lightsaber as she makes sure Kazdan and Leska’s harnesses are properly secured. The ship shudders again with impact and the Mon Cala teenager is all but thrown into Master Koon’s back with a yelping ‘oog!’.

“Are you alright, Padawan Eerin?” Master Koon inquires, carefully cradling Beru Kara against his chest as he helps padawan back upright.

“Yes, Master Koon.” She picks herself, up, a fire in her silver gaze. “But if I’m not mistaken…” She trails off, eyes anrrowing, unclipping her weapon.

The Kel Dor nods grimly. “We are about to be boarded.”

“If they don’t shoot us out of the fripping sky first!”

“Engineer, there are _children_ on this ship!” Navigator Qiss shouts back, the Faleens frills rising. “Watch your karking language!”

“Everyone – brace yourselves.”

The next impact throws them all forward, and they can feel the ship wrench and list as something comes apart, throwing them against their harnesses – or in the Captains case, against the console, and Koon against the captains seat.

“We just lost the stabilizer!”

“Thrusters are down!”

“What about hyperdrive?”

“That was the _first_ to go!”

There is a whining grind, and then a heavy clang as something latches on to the ship.

“Sithspawned fripping pirates damaging my karking ship!” Their navigator snarls, drawing a blaster from her boot. “Don’t they know someone has to _pay_ for this hunk of junk? That’s twice this month!”

“Qiss-“

“I had to barter with fripping jawas!”

“Qiss!”

“Have you ever bartered with a fripping jawa?” She snarls, to no one in particular, jabbing at her controls. “No karking exchange rate. No kriffing _sense_. Oh, you want an hyperdrive core? We’ll trade a nerf for it. Oh, you want a simple plasma igniter? That’ll cost you a thrice-damned up-market modified Nubian _yacht_.”

“Navigator Qiss!”

“_What_?”

“Suppression system?” The captain demands, while the Jedi watch in horrified fascination.

“It’s online! Just waiting for them to pop the cork.” She snaps.

“Suppression system?” Master Koon inquires.

Both the ExploraCorps Captain and the Navigator turn. “There’s a hatch under that bench. Pop it and pass out the masks.”

“Suppression system?” Master Koon repeats.

“The _pirate_ suppression system.” The Captain smiles.

~*~

“I have to say, young Skywalkers, I was not expecting two younglings with such advanced mechanical skills, nor so empathetically well attuned.” Doctor Zhirim says kindly, the burgundy skinned Zeltron leading the small youngling clan to dinner, after having spent most of the day in orientation classes to help them adjust to the Dawn Temple, and initiate them on how to behave during their stay.

“Jax is a telepath.” Etain points out, with a bit of a pout that she had not stood out as well. “And Ani’s mom is a genius.”

The doctor blinks slightly, but tips his head in acknowledgement.

“Well, I think we’ll assign young Anakin to the prosthesis department, if you are so inclined, and young Jax may do well with-“

“You can’t separate us!” Anakin protests, holding Jax’s hand.

“But you have very different talents, Initiate Skywalker. Do you not both deserve to explore your own interests?” The doctor counters calmly.

“Jax doesn’t talk.” Etain points out. “Anakin makes things easier for him.”

“Does that alter the premise of my inquiry?” The doctor inquires gently. Etain looks to her friends, confused. “Ah, apologies – does that change my question, Initiate Tur-Mukan?”

“…no?” She says hesitantly, though Anakin is quietly fuming, and a little scared. He doesn’t want to be separated from Jax. They were brothers. They were best friends. They did _everything_ together. Jax tugs on his sleeve and Anakin turns his frustrated gaze in his direction, desert blue eyes meeting deep brown.

‘_If we have all the same stories, we may as well be the same person_.’ Stories were important to the Amavikka, they were everything. ‘_And we’re not_.’

Jax lifts his brows, but he looks silly when he does it, and not at all like Obi-Wan’s pointed look, which he is clearly trying to imitate. ‘_And I’m still right here_.’ He leans forward, until their brows touch warmly, and Anakin can’t help but grin.

‘_Yeah, okay_.’ He agrees. ‘_But I don’t like you going away. You said the world still gets too loud when I’m not around_.’

‘_But at least you won’t be _bored.’ Jax points out, because they both know Anakin would have felt guilty, and chosen to go to wherever Jax was assigned. And he would probably have been bored. And then Jax would have to deal with _that_. ‘_And it’s quiet here_.’

“Okay.” Anakin agrees for the both of them, looking up at Doctor Zhirim. “But where is Jax gonna go?”

“Given his unique talents, I think your brother would do best assigned to another telepath, under Healer Vyos.” The MediCorps doctor comments. “Now, Initiate Tur-Mukan, perhaps you would like to assist Nurse Dyrr in Physical Therapy? And Initiate Ty, I think we’ll put you in the Basic First Aide and Emergency Communications course tomorrow, would that be agreeable? It gives our healers practice in instructing those who are unfamiliar without much pressure, hm?”

“Are we gonna get to take a class?” Anakin inquires, because he’d like to know First Aide too, but they didn’t teach it in the temple until the Initiates third level, and Anakin was only in the first. He wanted to be able to help when people got hurt. He _hated_ when people got hurt. Unless they were _bad_ people, like Gardulla. Jax leans into his shoulder, and Anakin relaxes, letting hi friend make the memories hurt less. Anakin didn’t remember a _lot_, about slavery, about Gardulla, but it still gives him bad dreams, and he knows where his scars came from, and his Amu’s scars. That’s _enough_.

“We intend for each of you to have a turn.” The doctor nods. “As I said – it gives our healers the instructional practice.” He ushers them all into the lift.

“Doctor Zhirim.” The being in the lift bows stiffly, in the pale tunics that marks him as a patient, a medical alert tag on his wrist.

“Master Krell,” Doctor Zhirim bows politely back. “ joining us for dinner?”

The besalisk nods, peering down at the younglings. “I heard we had guests. I thought it would be… correct to do so.”

“Younglings, this is Jedi Master Krell. Master Krell, Initiates Skywalker, Tur-Mukan, and Ty.”

“Greeting, Master Krell.” The younglings bow. Jax tugs nervously on Anakin’s sleeve. Anakin looks to his friend.

‘_He doesn’t feel good_.’ Jax leans against his mind, seeking reassurance.

‘_That’s why he’s here_.’ Anakin soothes. ‘_So he’ll get better_.’

‘_It’s cold_.’

Anakin frowns, and looks up at the towering Besalisk, imaging a wall of fire – Anakin’s fire – between the being and Anakin’s brother. Jax relaxes a little, melting against him.

‘_Like Quinlan_?’

Jax didn’t like Quinlan’s mind, but to be fair, Jax said Quinlan didn’t like Quinlan’s mind either. He showed Anakin, a little, and Quinlan was all _cold-mercury-echoes_, like being lost in a maze of ice, dark with glittering flashes of light and so _busy_, sprawling and seeking in all directions, but with a great big warning sign that said _do not enter here_.

“Greetings, younglings.” The besalisk bows again, stiff limbed as he does so, and Anakin spots a cane resting inside the left beside him.

‘_No_.’ Jax murmurs into his mind. ‘_Not like Quinlan_.’

~*~

“I have to say, Padawan Tachi, you’re the first Core Worlder I’ve ever met that speaks Bocce.” Kol’lu’lana, their twi’lek EduCorp escort says, with pleased surprise.

“I was told it would be useful.” Siri says simply. “If I ended up posted with the ExlporaCorps.”

“Forward planning. I like that.” Eelu, their Rodian EduCorp escort, says with an air of knowledgeability.

“Thank you.” Siri says, keeping one hand on Padawan Tanwaze’s arm as they are lead through the crowded streets. The crystal towers of Christophsis are stunningly beautiful, spires of gleaming green and blue and palest purple, reflecting sunlight and sky, leaving the faintest hum of the wind, and Padawan Tanwaze was _easily distractable_. She was scared that if she lost sight of him, he’d end up half way to Hutt space somehow, and then she’d never find him. That would be embarrassing.

Tsui had the easier job of keeping an eye on Kai and Lyra, the two younglings who’d begged to come along.

“Right here.” Eelu directs, turning down a lowered entrance of a blocky, squat community building, with a garden dome on the roof that reflected the crystal towers on the transparisteel panes.

The inside is a sharp transition from outside – perhaps not so noticeably to anyone who wasn’t a Force-Sensitive, but still. The walls are muted blues and greens, and the people as varied as they possibly could be, but it was the noise, a quiet din, and the prickly chaos of _fear-relief-numbness_ that startled the padawan, who, for a moment, felt like she was back on the streets of Rohst, trying to keep together a small band of frightened kids, all clinging to her robes for security and comfort that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to give.

“Siri?” Tsui briefly touches her knee, which is easier for the tiny Aleen than her elbow.

“I’m fine.” Siri snaps a bit, and then grits her teeth. Tsui just gives her a flat, knowing look, and leaves her be.

Ko’lu’lana takes Siri and Jepas down one corridor, while Eelu takes Tsui and the younglings down another. They pass several rooms with attendant droids helping people fill out forms, or teaching – attempting to teach – Basic to small groups. Some of the people they pass are crying, and some are very angry. Siri and Jepas each hesitate in turn, wanting to soothe the hurt and pain they can feel in the Force, digging against their skin, but Ko’lu’lana keeps leading them on.

“The Center provides very basic shelter and supplies here, but there are thousands of programs the Republic offers to help the underprivileged, and that’s where their long term support is going to come from. The best thing we can do for most of the people here is help them understand where to go and how to apply for assistance, and we help build up their applications as kuch as possible.”

“Like by teaching them a Galactic Standard language?” Jepas remarks.

“Yes.” The older twi’lek nods. “The Center operates mostly on local volunteers and Republic supplies droids, but our help here is in high demand as we’re far more structured in our approach, and we tend to have better success. Force-Sensitivity makes better learners,” Ko’lu’lana tells them. “ but it makes better teachers too. We can help them feel the meaning of what we try to convey, and we can calm agitated minds.”

“That doesn’t sound so different from diplomacy.”

“It’s not, if you really think about it.” The educator replies with a smile.

“So what are we going to do?” Jepas inquires, lekku twitching.

“Application work and language acquisition are important, but not, I think, an adequate use of your skills.” She says quietly, leading them into a quieter part of the complex. “As you might be aware, in addition to refugees, the Center helps process freed slaves. Their cases are… more difficult. They need a little more help than the rest.”

Siri frowns a little, thinking of Padawan Skywalker, who everyone knew was a slave once, but who made it very easy to forget that fact.

“I’d like you two work with some of those individuals.”

“Work on what, exactly?”

Ko’lu’lana pauses outside a door. “First: it is not their fault.”

“We know.” The padawans insist.

The older twi’lek nods. “They are very vulnerable. They do not understand the galaxy as you do, and they can too easily be taken advantage of. Do not mistake their ignorance for stupidity, nor their timidity for complacency. They are people, and they are deserving of respect.”

“We know.” The padawans repeat, more somberly and seriously.

She nods again.

“Good. Then I am assigning you to assist them in understanding their basic sentient rights, and what to do if someone tries to take those rights away.”

“Like how to report to Judicial?” Jepas asks.

“Or how to breaks someone’s face?” Siri tacks on.

Ko’lu’lana smiles. “Yes.”


	23. Chapter 23

Ben jumps, giving way for Knight Allie to dive, slams right into an impenetrable wall, and promptly gets smacked in the chest with a ball.

“Oh! Oh! _Excellent_ shot! Master Naasade is down! Ten points for the Jewelbirds!” Padawan Muln narrates, earning cheers from the younglings on the sidelines.

“_Qui-Gon_!” Ben growls, a little breathless from having hit the floor _after_ colliding with the taller man.

Jinn has the audacity to laugh, offering a hand to help Ben back up. Ben accepts, letting the other man pull him to his feet, and then promptly shoves Master Jinn into the arc of an oncoming shot. Ben did not _quite_ intend for the ball to hit him in the face.

“Ooh! Foul play! Friendly fire on Team Zillowbeast. Master Jinn is out!”

“Master _Naasade_!” Knight Allie scolds loudly, twisting in an ataru arc to avoid getting caught in a cross-fire.

In an attempt to avoid further incidents such as what was done to the water system in the Room of a Thousand Fountains – _which was now closed for maintenance, thank you, padawans_ – the remaining knights and masters had opened up one of the ballrooms and created a sort of tournament, inventing a creative and useful game for large numbers of players.

In essence, it was merely a scaled up version of push-pull, but with casualties. The padawan teams would, to the best of their abilities and using _only_ the Force, attempt to strike the opposing team with their hover-balls. The knights, unable to use the Force on the hover-balls – _or on the Padawans, Knight Twoseas_ – had a slightly more complicated objective: to not only avoid being struck, but to attempt to get the padawans to fall into their own lines of fire, so to speak, and eliminate each other.

To make things more fair in terms of skill (and to account for their disproportionate populations) teams comprised of 4-6 knights and masters faced off against teams of 10-15 padawans and initiates, and, to entertain those who weren’t well enough to participate, the games were being holo-cast for the benefit of those in the Halls of Healing.

“Are you bleeding?” Ben inquires, trying to sound like he wasn’t repressing a laugh of his own as Qui-Gon staggers back to his feet, one hand over his nose.

“It appears not.” The other master grumbles, shooting him a peevish look as they make their way to the sidelines. Ben immediately diverts towards his padawan, whom, he has noticed, is coaching _very young initiates_ on the principles of shaping structures in the Force.

“_Padawan_.” Ben warns. “That is not a skill a seven year old needs to have!”

Obi-Wan looks up at him innocently. “Anakin’s nearly figured it out, and he’s _five_.”

“That-“ _is not good_, Ben thinks reflexively, considering what _his_ Anakin had gotten up to as a youngling _without_ such abilities “ – is his mother’s problem.” Ben says. “And _can’t be blamed on us_.”

Obi-Wan sighs. “Sorry, younglings.”

“But Master _Naasade_!” A little barabel girl whines. “I want to walk on the ceiling!”

Ben gives Obi-Wan a flat, pointed look, and the padawan shrugs, repressing a smile. “Sorry, little one.” Ben says sternly. “Perhaps when you’re a bit older.”

“Eight?” She proposes.

“How about – at least _ten_.” Ben counters, praying some vengeful crechemaster won’t appear to poison his tea for this.

“Deal.” She nods, holding up a webbed hand with utter seriousness. Ben smiles, and bends down to shake it, hoping that won’t come back around to bite him.

Thus released, Ben and Obi-Wan make their way back to Master Jinn, who is still prodding his unfortunate nose, pinching the bridge between his eyes in discomfort. Ben wipes the sweat off his brow, pushing loose strands of hair back. “That wasn’t so bad.” Ben remarks.

Qui-Gon glowers at him, lowering his hand. “You _pushed_ me into the line of fire.”

“You started it.” Ben retorts, very maturely.

“You know, masters,” Obi-Wan points out. “It’s a good thing the two of you canceled each other out. _Actually working together_ would have made the two of you unstoppable, and that would hardly be fair.”

It’s the damningest praise, and Ben is torn between being affronted and being proud of how utterly well delivered it was. Ben glances at Qui-Gon, hoping he didn’t take it too severely, and is pleasantly surprise to find that Master Jinn took it with all good humor, startling out a chuckle.

Obi-Wan grins.

_I missed this_, Ben thinks, surprising himself. Most of the time, all of his memories of Qui-Gon, all his wist and regret, is wrapped up in the fact that the man died and Ben never forgave him for it. Their parting was sad and tainted by bitterness and grudge, and as frustrating as it was to deal with him now, Ben so rarely delved into the memories of his master that were simply _good_. Because even the good memories ached.

But this moment reminds him that for all he and Qui-Gon had (and still) clashed, there were still those times where they were perfectly in tune, where his master had borne his burgeoning witty humor with something approaching grace, and Ben had patiently gone along with Qui-Gon’s penchant for adopting any kind of pathetic lifeform that crossed their path, and they had been perfect compliments in battle, or in negotiations. Obi-Wan was right – on the same side of an argument, or a fight, Ben and Qui-Gon Jinn had been nigh unstoppable. _When_ they worked _together_.

Ben’s comm chirps, and he taps his vambrace, the one piece of armor he’d elected to keep on while playing.

Obi-Wan straightens reflexively, and Ben glances at his padawan, then at the figure on the comm.

“_Mand’alor_.” Ben dips his head. “How may I be of service?”

Fett’s not in his helmet, so Ben can see his gaze flicker to the glimpses he must be getting of the people moving around Ben, padawans and initiates no doubt creating staticky figures in the background on the other end of the display.

The mandalorian king takes a breath before meeting his eyes. “_Vod_.” He starts with, and Ben feels his heart start to sink.

~*~

Jango grips the back of the chair in front of him, letting his tension settle into clenched fingers and taught shoulders; across from him, palms braced on the display table he was leaning over, Adonai Kryze didn’t look any happier.

They were waiting for Naasade to re-open the comm, the jedi having needed to excuse himself to a more private setting, one look at Jango’s face enough to tell him that they were not to be the bearers of good news.

“This was my mistake.” Jango mutters, furious at the outcome.

“_Our_ mistake.” Adonai corrects tiredly. “We agreed to make the offer together.”

Jango growls wordlessly, not _wanting_ to listen to reason. Kryze just watches him, silver-green eyes steady in their focus.

The holo flickers back on on the table, three figures standing in its view.

“_Mand’alor Fett, Jorad’alor Kryze, may I introduce Master Qui-Gon Jinn_.” Ben gestures primly, the lines around his eyes and mouth tight with grim expectation.

The taller, longer-haired man bows, casting them both with a discerning eye. Fett nods.

“Master Jinn.” Kryze acknowledges, as Jango moves around the table to his side, for the sake of the frame of the holo. “Padawan Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan salutes them both, fist crossing his chest.

There is a quiet pause, and Naasade takes the plunge. “_What happened_?”

Jango clenches and unclenches his hands, jaw tight, and Kryze pulls up a recording on the comm system.

A mando in _Kyr’stad_ armor, voice distorted on the feed.

“_Mando’ade_. _Do not let yourselves be deceived_.” The message calls out. “_This man is no true Mand’alor_.” An image of Jango pops up, the day he made his re-entrance on stage, cut to frame Naasade in the background behind him, so clearly a jedi.

“_No true Mand’alor would side with the jetiise_.” The feed returns to the impassive helmet of the mando, the Kyr’stad sigil emblazoned behind them, and they spit the accusation. “_Would succor them over his own people. The jettise would see our way of life brought to ruin. Would see us made meek and purposeless._”

-“_This cannot happen_.” -

-“_This will not happen_.” -

-“_All those who harbor a jetii are aruettiise_.” -

-“_And for that, there can only be one punishment_.”-

Kryze cuts the playback. The Jedi don’t need to see what came next. Hearing about it will be bad enough.

“_What did they _do?” Obi-Wan demands, gaze hard and already heartbroken.

“Death Watch attacked the Medical Research Station on the edge of the sector.” Jango reports, rage making his voice harsh. To say they attacked was being gentle – Death Watch _obliterated_ it. “Roughly twelve-hundred dead, another six hundred wounded, not including the missing. To include the six jedi knights, three masters, and… three padawans who reported there for safe quarantine.”

Ben shifts, gaze catching on his sharply. They both know there had been _five_ padawans on that station. Two had been separated when they were cleared of having the virus, but in danger of getting it from their companions. Jango would do what he could to protect them - for Ben Naasade and Obi-Wan Kenobi, _not_ for the Jedi - but until they were safely back with their own people, it was best no one on Mandalore knew who, or _what_ they were.

So far as anyone was concerned, the Death Watch were utterly successful in achieving their blood-stained goal.

It was the barest of graces, and they both knew it bitterly. Jango would do what he could, but…twelve hundred _dead_ as collateral, just to get to _fourteen_ jedi.

Naasade swallows, lowering his gaze briefly. “_Ner or'trikar cuyir gar or'trikar, vod_. _Ni cuy' ni ceta par ibic_.” He murmurs, and Jango grinds his teeth and nods, keeping his eyes on the jedi master, because his words are easier to bear than the angry, heartbroken upset on Obi-Wan’s face. _My grief is your grief, brother. I am so sorry for this_.

“_Am gar piru’paak par ve'vut_.” Jango snaps angrily. _Trade your tears for gold_. “This is not on you.”

It would be easy, he thinks, to blame the Jedi for it anyways. Once more, they have brought a massacre down on his people, and what do they have to show for it? Old anger, old hate stirs in his bones, the one he had harbored and honed through his years of slavery, determined that when he was free, he’d pay back the _jetiise_ for their treachery, for their butchery, he’d pay it back _completely_.

But it was a jedi who freed him. This jedi, right there, who bore a name that was no name at all and still _meant_ something, one who spoke the tongue not like he was born to it, no matter how clean his accent, but like he _loved_ it, like the language freed something in his spirit – and _that_, that was _Mandalore_.

The great fucking irony of Mandalore and the Jedi was this: when they bled, they bled together.

At Galdiraan, it was because they’d wounded each other. Today, it was because they were struck by the same fell blow.

“_It’s not on you either_.” Ben returns, gaze lifted and boring piercingly back at Jango’s. “_The Death Watch commit their own crimes, and the Death Watch _will_ pay for them_.”

“They will.” Duke Kryze affirms. “But we’ll deal with that. Master Naasade, Padawan Kenobi –“ He addresses them not as jedi, but as _jetii manda_, meeting their gazes. “ – given our respective circumstances, it is best if from now on, the Jedi Order stays away from Mandalore.”

Obi-Wan suck in a breath, looking defiant, and his master drops a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. The teenager closes his mouth, lowering his gaze and glowering hard at the floor.

“_As you would have it, Jorad’alor, Mand’alor_.” Ben replies formally, an ache in his eyes.

It’s _not_ as Jango would have it – he’d rather have that man _here_, at his side, fighting this fight with him – but Naasade, at the moment, was not only a virus carrier, but currently in command of his entire Temple. He had his own battles to bear through.

Jango wishes, though, deeply, that the man was sworn to the traditional _resol’nare_, that if he called, Ben would come. He’s a hell of a brother to have at your side. Jango had considered, back at the Betoya homestead, offering to take the man – and his _verd’ibir_ \- Jedi or not, into his clan. But Naasade wasn’t a title someone else gave you and someone else took away. Ben had chosen to cast off his old _aliit_. He had to choose to take up a new one again, and Jango – they both had their issues, their grief and their scars – and Jango didn’t think Ben was ready to do that. So he wouldn’t insult the both of them by pressing the issue.

But he's been tempted, every time they share drinks from halfway across the galaxy - though Ben usually drank tea, while Jango was drinking something far stronger - troubleshooting the raising and education of teenagers, treading carefully through the precarious balance between jedi and mandalorians and the past, occasionally discussing politics. The jedi had a keen strategic mind that Jango found useful in trying to root out the Death Watch - and their less obvious but no less detrimental allies.

“_Cuyir ti gar An’keliroya, Mand’alor_.” Obi-Wan says, and Jango can’t help but scowl at the boy, watching the corner of his mouth turn up in an attempt at a smirk that doesn’t quite make it through his current somber mood. _Force be with me_, Jango thinks irritably. _I don’t need that banthashit_.

“_K’oyaci, jed’ika_.” Jango returns gruffly, earning a resolute nod.

The jedi sign off, and Jango looks to Kryze, who rubs a hand over his face.

“We could have used him.” Jango insists.

“Used, yes, and proven the Death Watch right. That Fett stands with the Jedi, over his own.” Kryze responds reasonably. Tiredly. They’ve been having the same argument for an hour. Jango _knows_ the Duke is right, knows that Kryze would just as well have Naasade and Kenobi here as he would.

But their enemy is clever, and they _would_ use that against them.

Jango closes his eyes. _Twelve hundred dead_.

“No more half measures.” Jango mutters. “No more placations, no more _dealing_. We can’t avoid it anymore, Kryze.”

“I know.” The duke sighs, pressing a closed fist down on the table. He meets Fett’s gaze, and there is doubt there – doubt festered by long years bearing the burden alone, long years trying to hold it all together, and knowing he was failing – but durasteel and spitfire too.

Jango certainly doesn’t question where Bo-Katan gets it from.

This was a declaration of war. _Kyr’stad_ was ready – or near enough that the return of the _Mand’alor_ pushed them into appearing so – but Fett was _one_ man. He could only pray his people were ready too, and that when he called, they answered.

“_Cun oyay, burc’ya_.” Jango murmurs.

The Duke smiles grimly. “_Cun oyay par Manda’yaim_.”

_Our lives for Mandalore_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:
> 
> Mand'alor: king, leader of the mandalorian way of life  
Jorad'alor: voice of the people  
Vod: brother/sister, by blood or battle  
Kyr'stad: death watch  
Jetii/ jetiise: jedi  
Aruettii/ aruettiise: traitor/s  
verd'ibir: soldier student/ padawan  
Aliit: family/clan/identity  
K'oyaci: stay alive  
Bur'cya: friend  
Jed'ika: little jedi


	24. Chapter 24

“No.”

“Please, Technician Fora.” Sian repeats sweetly, hands clasped, eyes open wide.

The dark-skinned woman frowns down at her, clearly faltering, before crinkling her freckled nose and narrowing her eyes. “Why? I finally have Master Fisto settled in the hydroponics bays and those two girls are proving themselves in the germination labs. There’s no _reason_ to send them off with the supply run.”

Sian drops her pleading and crosses her arms, because clearly being cute wasn’t going to work. “I’m hoping Master Fisto will take the twins as his padawans.” Sian admits.

Faro’s frown softens, and she tilts her head quizzically. “You realize you can’t just toss an initiate – or initiates – at a Jedi Master and expect them to stick in the Force, right? If it were _that_ easy…” She trails off, shaking her head.

“My master apprenticed me because he lost a bet in a card game.” Sian points out.

Fora’s mouth drops a little, looking Sian up and down as if testing the credibility of that statement. “Are you not kidding?”

“I am not kidding.” Sian assures her.

“And it worked out?”

Sian tips her head. Her relationship with her master is probably… not as strong as it should be. Master Jinn was an apparently unstoppable force – when it came to everyone and everything but _her_. He always hesitated, and, truth be told, it got on Sian’s nerves. So, as patient as she tried to be – as Master Tahl coached – Sian also tended to push her luck and her boundaries – as Master Naasade coached – just to prove that he was _stuck_ with her, and that it would all be _fine_ if he just made the effort. Sian wasn’t going to break.

But, having seen now what being in Du Crion’s orbit did to her master, she realized now that maybe _he_ might. All his hesitancy and tip-toeing and stand-offish behavior, it wasn’t really about _her_.

_But I’m not Xanatos_. She affirms to herself, inwardly wondering what it would take to _prove_ that to her master. _And Xanatos was not Master Qui-Gon’s fault_.

As Master Ben said – he made his own choices.

“We manage.” Sian replies honestly. “So will you help me out, please?”

Technician Fora sighs, crossing her arms. “You really think _that_ master, with _those_ initiates, is a good idea?”

“No.” Sian grins. “I think it’s a _great_ idea.”

~*~

“Do you know the black market value of unflawed kyber?” The tall masked pirate inquires slowly, a pleased grin in his voice.

The younglings eyes are wide through the clear plate of their breather masks, trapped in their harnesses and seats by the evident and violent threat of blasters.

The suppression system – that is, the system designed to vacate the oxygen in the ships atmosphere - at least from the airlock through to the cockpit, not in the lower cabins - when triggered - _had_ worked – on the two scouts sent to scope them out. For pirates, this bunch was awfully cautious – or just experienced.

Navigator Qiss pants for breath and bares her teeth in a sickly snarl, fallen between the pilot and the copilots chair, having taken a blaster-bolt to the stomach – though not before shooting down two of their unwanted guests herself.

“It is worth more than this ship, and the lives of this crew.” Their leader remarks, reaching up with a gray hand to unbuckle his mask, the threat of deadly harm to Master Koon and the toddler in his arms having convinced the Engineers and Captain Ghok to cooperate. The mask comes away, revealing dark eyes and a bulbous nose, and long tendrils which uncurl from his cheeks.

Horror chills Bant from head to toe, and she tenses rigidly, all thought of trying to draw her lightsaber back to her hand from the pirates belt forgotten.

“And it pales considerably next to the value of even a half-trained Jedi.” The Anzat smiles. “Such a delight to come seeking trinkets, and find such a trove of riches instead.” He remarks.

Padawan Serra Keeto, the black haired, deep-water eyed, eleven year old apprentice to the Battlemaster of the Temple, has clearly never read the same stories as Bant, never rooted out the truth from the myth of crecheling tales, and does not recognize the being which stands before her.

How she got out of the Temple with a vibroblade, Bant doesn’t know, but the little human cuts free of her harness and _launches_ herself at the Anzat.

_No_! Bant lunges, shoving herself into the pirate watching her and ripping her lightsaber off their belt. Leska, their ten year old auburn haired initiate – is clearly as quick on the uptake as her crechemate, and simply pulls Navigator Qiss’s blaster to her hand, and, still strapped into harness shoots one startles pirate in chest, and another in the arm.

“_Stop_.”

Bant shudders, fighting it, but the compulsion of that soft command is _strong_. The Anzat has Serra by the throat, his probiscus tendrils sliding up the edges of her face, threatening, halting even Master Plo, who had simply knocked one pirate unconscious with a hard one-handed shove into the bulkhead.

The Anzat were nightmares children had and adults preferred to forget, ancient Force-Sensitives who preyed on other Force-Sensitives, feeding off of them, growing in power with each one they drained.

“_You’re playing a very dangerous game_.” He says, and it drills into Bant’s mind, and makes everything else seem…seem…. “_You don’t want to do that. People will get hurt_.” He croons.

_I don’t want people to get hurt_. Bant thinks, watching a tendril slide across Serra’s slack, blank-eyed face, drawing towards her eyes, her nose. The Mon Calamar blinks slowly, feeling…buoyant, and sleepy. _Who would get hurt_? She wonders. There was nothing wrong here. Nothing bad. She could just close her eyes and…drift….

Just for a minute.

Beru Ka’ra lets out a shrill, empathic scream, and it feels like being punched on the _inside_ of the skull.

Bant jerks, both in mental pain and in horror, and rips Serra out of the Anzat’s grasp with the Force. Master Plo rises up, lifts a hand, and a wave rolls out. Bant is rooted to the floor, a little girl in her arms and a lightsaber in her grip, and the pirates are _flung_ back towards the airlock.

The Anzat snarls, and Bant drops her lightsaber, lifting a hand and adding more Force to Master Plo’s push, throwing them _out_.

“Ships are – ships still attached.” Navigator Qiss grits out, blood seeping around the fingers pressed into her abdomen.

“I can fix that.” Initiate Parratus says quickly, body quivering with stress, struggling with his harness and the mask slipping over his nose. “I can fix the ship!”

Navigator Qiss gives him a thumbs up, and Captain Ghok looks over her nervously, but tears himself away to help drag the unconscious pirate out, following Master Koon, who still had a red-faced toddler in his arms, whose mind was still shrieking like a warning bell, for all that she was quiet and clinging to his robes.

Initiate Leska was gripping her head, and Bant felt sorry for her, remembering Obi-Wan’s fits as a youngling, and the pain those had caused her, when her shields had been weaker. They were just so… _loud_.

Bant turns and sets Padawan Keeto down, the girl completely limp, her head lolling, her eyes glazed over. Bant reached out hesitantly in the Force, and got back a hazy compulsion, an ocean of fear, and what she thought might be Force Shock. “I’ve got you.” Bant murmurs, rubbing the girls arms. “I’ve got you.” She promises, pushing past the headache and the din and offering a gentle touch of warmth and security in the Force, trying to smooth away the worst of it.

Bant focuses so intensely, keeping it up until a little color returns to the girls face, and her gaze starts to clear, that she doesn’t notice what everyone else is doing until the ship lurches, with a grinding disconnect from whatever mechanism had been holding them in place.

“_Kid_.” Qiss warns feebly, hissing as Master Plo tends to her injuries, having moved her to lay flat on the floor.

“Shh.” Kazdan burbles at her, focused on the console.

“We still don’t have an operational hyperdrive.”

The Aleen’s eyes roll, for all the Captains concern.

A moment later, they find out why.

There is the distinct rolling whine of an engine spinning up – just, not theirs. And it whines, and it whines, and it whines.

“We still have shields.” Kazdan reminds them absently, still tapping away.

Master Plo looks up. “Brace yourselves.” He instructs.

There is a large, muffled _pop_!

And then the shockwave crashes over them, roaring against the hull, and the other vessel has just…vanished.

“Did you – hack their _hyperdrive_?” An Engineer shouts from under the grating somewhere. “Can we keep you? Captain, can we keep him? You can do that, right? Like, bid for this kid?”

“Good work, kid.” Qiss says. “Now see if you can’t get communications back so this bucket of bolts can call for help.”

Kazdan shrugs unaffectedly, but in the Force, he feels very pleased.

~*~

Anakin stumbles down the corridor, Jax’s hands on his shoulders, pushing him from behind.

“We’re going, we’re going!” Anakin grumbles, longing for the datapad of sketches the prosthetic department had let him borrow to look at, because they were _amazing_. But Jax had been anxious and pushy, and so Anakin _had_ to take care of it, the two of them sneaking out of the dorm the initiates had been given.

Amu might have scolded him for it, and he feels a little guilty about that, but they weren’t doing anything _bad_, and if it was that _easy_, then it wasn’t really his fault, was it? “I can’t find them as easy as you can.” Anakin adds, complaining.

He could find _anybody_ easily, sure, but _specific_ people were harder for him than for Jax. Anakin had the sheer range, but Jax was more adept at the details. But Jax pushed – he didn’t like to lead.

‘_They’re meditating_.’ Jax informs him. ‘_That way_.’

They turn down a corridor, one side open to an outdoor courtyard, and bolt across it towards an archway, leading down into an herb garden.

“I see what you mean, Ylar.” Master Vyos sighs, ears twitching. “They are _quite_ sneaky.”

“Padawan Skywalker is an excellent teacher.” Healer Kala remarks, looking down on the boys, who freeze, Anakin offering a guilty smile and Jax hiding behind him. “To the vexation of many crechemasters.”

“I can imagine.” Master Vyos comments wryly. “Now then, boys, what has you up and about so late?”

Jax pops up around Anakin’s shoulder, tugging on his sleeve. Anakin leans back a little, forcing Jax to put up with his weight. His brother huffs in his ear, and Anakin twitches. “Is Master Krell going to come back to our Temple?” Anakin asks.

“When he is well, that I the goal, yes.” Master Vyos informs them gently, a little puzzled. “Did you know Master Krell?”

Anakin and Jax both shake their heads. The Healers exchange a glance.

“Is he… almost well?” Anakin asks, feeling Jax’s fingers dig into his shirt.

The camaasi Healers ears twitch, and they look from one boy to another.

“Anakin, why do you ask?” Healer Kala inquires.

“I don’t like him.” Anakin says, a bit mulishly. “He scares Jax.”

Jax would admit that much, but not what he saw, and he wouldn’t help Anakin see it either. He just burrowed further into Anakin in the Force, and blotted it out.

“Physically, Master Krell is recovering quite well.”

Anakin scowls, but Jax watches the healers somberly. ‘_But that’s not why he’s_ here.’

“But that’s not why he’s _here_.” Anakin presses, just half a blip behind the thought sent into his head.

“Not entirely, no.” Healer Vyos nods, wrinkly snout twitching just a little.

‘_He’s not going to get better_.’ Jax insists. ‘_He doesn’t want to get better. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with him. He thinks _they’re_ wrong, and that if he just _pretends-‘ Jax’s thoughts lose coherency in distress, and Anakin hums inside his head, drawing up the memory of Amu singing while she studied, of her carding her fingers through their hair when they wouldn’t settle down, of wrapping them up in her shadow, keeping them warm, and _safe_.

“What if he doesn’t want to get better? What if he _lies_ about being better?”

“Young one, these anxieties are too big for you. They are not yours to bear. Either of you.” Healer Vyos says softly, kindly.

“But-“ Anakin protests, full of indignation.

“We are not so naive as to believe that Master Krell’s recovery is as he wishes it to appear. We have done our work far longer than it has ever concerned any of you.” The elder Healer says, crouching down, looking Anakin in the eyes, and then Jax, gaze wise and _knowing_. “Can you not trust in that, and find ease?”

Jax tenses a little, leaning forward, peering back at the camaasi Healer, who waits him out. Anakin tries not to get impatient. Amu is forever telling him to be more patient, but he doesn’t really understand _why_. He _hates_ waiting, when there is so much to _do_.

Eventually Jax nods, relaxing into Anakin’s side in relief. Anakin sighs.

“There we are.” Healer Vyos nods to the both of them, pleased. “Now then, we had best see the two of you back to your beds, hadn’t we? You’ve had a very busy day, and another waits for you tomorrow.”

“Yes, master.” Anakin mumbles, while Jax smiles shyly. “Are we in trouble?”

Healer Kala takes that what, humming thoughtfully, looking over the both of them. “Not this time, I think. But don’t make a habit of it.”

Anakin grins in relief. “We won’t.” He promises, Jax nodding reassuringly.

~*~

“You’re a very good teacher.” Jepas informs her, and Siri blinks, looking own into his bright grey eyes, made stark by the twi’lek’s truly black skin. “I learned a lot, and I’m glad you were here. I don’t think I did as well.”

He hadn’t, but then, he was _eleven_, and a historical archivists apprentice. They didn’t exactly have a lot of ‘dealing with people’ experience. Siri had had to step in several times to correct him, or just reign in his enthusiasm, which had been a little overwhelming for a few of those they were trying to help.

“Thank you.” Siri says hesitantly. Jepas grins, revealing a gap in his sharp teeth where a tooth is missing.

“I was told you were mean, but you’re not.” He adds, swinging his arms a little as they walked back to the EduCorps campus.

Siri tenses. “Oh.” She says tightly, looking down at the green-hued shadows in front of her feet.

She knows well enough from her friends that – she’s _not nice_, as they put it. But it’s different with them. They don’t look at her the way others do – the way other initiates had, before Master Adi had taken her on. Wary and accusatory and smug, like they were just waiting for her to be sent away, and wanted to keep her as far from them as possible until she was. Or the way they did _after_ Master Adi chose her, disbelieving and scornful, because how was it fair that _Siri Tachi_ got a master and they didn’t? Older padawans liked to joke that her master hadn’t smoothed out her rough edges yet, and other padawans her age tended to avoid her – but that was fine. Siri was busy, so it wasn’t like she _noticed_.

Much.

But she could deal with the looks. She just didn’t realize they _talked_ about her. That padawans and initiates she’d never even met would tell each other “Watch our for Siri Tachi, she’s _mean_.”

Siri sucks in a breath. “I kind of am.” She says. It’s better to tell them herself, she thinks. Because she’s _not_ nice, and she knows it, and so do her friends.

But she’s still _good_, and she knows that too, and so do her friends.

“You’re not mean to me!” Padawan Tanwaze insists, bouncing on his heels.

Siri lifts a brow. “Give me a reason.” She mutters, though a smile tries to push out the corner of her mouth.


	25. Chapter 25

Ben steps in to the planetarium with a great deal of nostalgia, and a heavy heart. Following the communication from Mandalore, he’d had to remain, and relay the information regarding the deaths of twelve Jedi to Mace and Gallia.

Obi-Wan had not remained, instead leaving curtly and abruptly, and with no small amount of writhing emotion boiling under his skin.

Qui-Gon had been quiet, but had offered a steady comfort in the Force that helped Ben more than the other man probably realized.

Ben grieved the deaths, but he was not so stricken by the exile from the Mandalore system so much as he was by the idea of being separated from the people there, those he knew and respected and who would be fighting – and he knew they _would_ be fighting – _without_ him.

But he had quelled that, and the memories it invoked, and performed his duties, and now – sought out his padawan.

It doesn’t surprise him to see familiar stars and planets swirling through the room. Ben had taken to Mandalorian culture, deeply and with a need and a purpose, but Obi-Wan had – through Ben’s own efforts, and the pointed attention of the _Mand’alor_ himself – been _raised_ into it, and clung to it far more materially. Perhaps more so than most masters would approve of, but Ben – was not most masters, who were so concerned of the letting go that they never got around to the _having_.

Obi-Wan is laying in the middle of the room, arms sprawled out, the light of the holograms playing over his face. Ben steps over quietly and folds himself down to lie on his back as well. Obi-Wan takes in a deep breath and lets out a shuddery sigh.

“It’s not permanent.” Obi-Wan says, voice a little scratchy.

“It’s not.” Ben affirms. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

Another shuddery breath.

“Why does it hurt _so much_? I’ve barely even been there.” He protests, bleeding hurt and confusion in the Force, and grief. “How could they, master? _Twelve hundred_. They were – they were just spacers and _healers_. It was a _medical research station_, how _could_ they?”

“Because they knew it would hurt those they wanted to hurt.” Ben says.

Obi-Wan draws an arm up, cradling his weaker wrist to his chest. “They saved my life. There was a – a Medical Officer Green. She was working on an artificial replacement to Bacta, and she saved my life. She was probably still – probably still….”

Ben reaches over, grasping his padawan by the shoulder.

“Is it our fault?” Obi-Wan asks quietly. “Sending our people there when we knew the system was-“

“It was an offer made and accepted on good faith, padawan.” Ben says, just as quiet. “It was a chance at building something better between the Jedi and Mandalore than a wary cease-fire.”

“It didn’t work.” Obi-Wan says bitterly.

“That’s not on us.” Ben says firmly. “And this is not the end of it.”

“But we can’t _do_ anything about it!” the teenager seethes. “Why can’t we do anything about it? They’re _our_ people too and we can’t – master, I –“

Ben sits up, drawing his padawan up with him, and pulls the upset teen against his side. “I know.” Ben murmurs. “I know.” He repeats, rocking a little, carefully drawing out the knots of _anger-vengeance-guilt_ in the Force that were tearing his padawan to emotional pieces. His own anger is a quiet, deeper, _colder_ thing, but Ben knows what his padawan does not. This war for Mandalore was fought before, and won, even without them. And this time Mandalore had its _Mand’alor_. With Fett they stood a better chance than ever.

_You can’t fight every battle_.

Ben and Obi-Wan had a war on their hands already, one far subtler and far more reaching, but…

They were not mutually exclusive. Not entirely. Mandalore – whether they knew it or not – had been entwined with the fate of the galaxy, from Fett, to Satine, even to Maul, and his dark uprising, which as far as Ben had heard, had still been bucking the yoke of the Empire, four years in, and by then, they had been a shattered people.

Made whole, they might have even been able to truly _fight back_.

The deeper Ben digs, the more dangerous he realizes his enemy truly is. Everything he remembers, everything he finds tells him they have plans within plans and back-up plans and fallbacks and they have had a very long time to set them in place, in motion. Victory had been a long time coming, but it was decided well before the Clone Wars ever began.

He is doing all he can to see the Jedi slip the trap before it closes in, but –

It never hurts to have a back-up plan.

_There _is_ more I could do_, he thinks vehemently.

~*~

Obi-Wan jolts awake, still getting flashes behind his eyes of smoke in air, and mud made of blood and oil, and flowers-

He rolls over and pushes himself up, reaching for a datapad, because there’s something teasing at his mind. He opens a new file, the words coming out like he’s thought them before.

_|A white lily_

_Reaching for the sun_

_Blooms defiantly on barren ground._

_Oil seeps - |_

His comm beeps, and Obi-Wan pauses, rubbing at his eyes. It _very_ early, and even still, casting his senses out, he can tell his master is already up and gone for the morning. Obi-Wan frowns at the empty space of their quarters, and answers the comm.

It’s Satine, looking resolute and apologetic.

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Obi-Wan… surrenders to the inevitability.

“You’re returning to Mandalore.” He says for her.

“I am not going to hide on Coruscant while my people go to war.” Satine says. “I’ve been apart from them long enough.”

“You’re a _pacifist_.” Obi-Wan reminds her, half pleading, in the hopes that she’d be here, at least. Near him. “_Satine_.”

“I am the daughter of Duke Adonai Kryze.” Satine returns fiercely. “And I am going _home_. I know I’m not a warrior, Obi-Wan, but I am no longer defenseless, and there is more than one way to fight. Something _you_ reminded me of, you know.”

Obi-Wan smiles wanly, sighing. “I know.” He admits reluctantly.

“I just wanted to make sure I said goodbye, before I went.” Satine says softly, lookin at him beseechingly, like he had something to offer her, but Obi-Wan didn’t know what it could be.

“The Jedi are banned from Mandalore.” Obi-Wan says achingly.

“I know.” She replies, brow pinched, silver-blue eyes apologetic. “I heard.”

Obi-Wan clenches and unclenches a fist, feeling helpless, and despising himself for it as he stares back at her, feeling like there was too much to say, or not enough. _I can’t go with you, I can’t be there, I can’t_-

Obi-Wan lowers his head and takes a deep breath. _We do what we can_, he reminds himself. He understood that. Learning to accept what he _could not do_ – that was harder. So much harder. Something he rarely had to deal with, under his Master’s tutelage.

When he looks back up, Satine is looking aside nervously, but catches the motion, and meets his gaze.

“Stay safe, Satine.” He murmurs. “_K’oyaci_.” He adds, meaning it.

_Stay alive_.

She smiles sweetly, if somberly.

“You too, Obi-Wan.”

~*~

“If the Order has such reserves, why have they not opened them for the current financial predicament?” Holo-Kenobi inquires, the holocron set on the arm of Ben’s chair as he worked.

“To the first, because I am not entirely certain the current Master of Treasury is aware of these particular funds.” Ben replies absently, and then pauses. “Or perhaps he is.”

Master Sifo-Dyas had used exactly these funds, after all, to initiate the production of the Clone Army, but that was years from now in another life.

“To the second, these are War Reserve funds, which, as you might imagine, are reserved in the event that the Jedi Order returns to war.” Ben adds, carefully paring out numbers from various accounts, shifting them into a dozen discreet, smaller accounts that were more accessible and far less traceable. “Not for economic dilemma.”

“In which case, your re-allocation is essentially embezzlement.” The holocron points out wryly. Ben glowers at the reflection of himself, and it smirks.

“In point of fact – _no_.” Ben replies flatly. “I’m utilizing them in exactly the manner they are meant to be used – in preparation for war.”

“Without the approval of the High Council.”

“I’m aware of the irony, thank you.” Ben says snippily, uploading the data to the holocron for safekeeping.

“Funds reserved for the preparation, armament, and supply required for war.” The holocron states, the image flickering with influx of the new datastream. “And the reparations after.”

Ben pauses, hands stilling on the chairs console. He glances at the small hologram, which watches him with an unfairly understanding look. He is arguing with _himself_, in the most literal way possible.

“Never having lived is not the same as dying.” The holocron states.

“I know.” Ben replies hoarsely. “But they did live. They had lives. They were good men – friends, _vod_. I _remember_ them. How can I deny them a new chance? How can I just let them disappear?”

Maybe not all of them, and not- _he swears_ \- not the same. They would own their lives, they would be free men. If he could convince himself that this was the right thing to do, if he could convince Fett that the True Mandalorians could be reborn this way, that this could be their reparation for Galidraan, if he did this right, without the interference of the Sith, if –

“Is it really about them?” Holo-Kenobi asks. “Or about _you_? You miss them.”

“Of course I miss them.” Ben bursts out, flush with the force of it, burning through his marrow. “I miss everyone.”

“They are right _here_.”

“No.” Ben shakes his head in fierce denial. “They are _not_. Everyone _I_ ever _loved_ \- I kill them every day, with every choice I make that changes _who_ they are, what they’ll _do_, what they become. Some of them – some of them may never even be born now, because of what I have done.” He thinks of Leia, standing on Bail’s feet so he can ‘dance’ with his daughter, grinning up at him with ribbons falling out of her hair; of Luke, drawing pictures in the sand, shouting ‘Look, Unc’ Ben, look!’. Of the fact that in order to save other lives, he may well have already erased theirs. “But this – I have _control_ over this.”

“Does that give you the _right_?” Holo-Kenobi demands.

Ben looks away, out the window, the sky barely touched with the first light of dawn, and runs a tense hand over his beard. “I don’t know.” He murmurs, offering up a self-defeating sigh. “I don’t know.”


	26. Chapter 26

“ – _all accounts there is no trail to follow, no matter how many invoices we dig up nor security feed we sift through._” Master Dooku reports gravely. “_And we have been_ exhaustive. _The only fault we can find in this entire situation is that the transport which delivered our shipment to the Temple and all crew involved have vanished_.”

“Vanished?” Qui-Gon inquires, rubbing his temple in the vain hopes of pressing back his migraine.

“_The vessel itself was reported as being attacked on its next voyage, with no wreckage to be discovered. The original pilots were on board. One service technician supposedly took employment elsewhere, but no one is capable of discerning _where_. Another was simply reported missing, and the shipboard medical engineer has most unfortunately died in an inexplicable accident. We are at a dead end, I’m afraid.”_

His old master looks grim and frustrated, and Qui-Gon sympathizes. None of that information bodes well, and none of it bears fruit.

“_We understand, Master Dooku_.” Master Windu sighs gravely, looking as troubled as they all feel. “_We commend your efforts_.”

Master Dooku inclines his head, looking dissatisfied with himself nonetheless.

“_Tie up what you must for your report, Master Dooku_.” Knight Gallia says. “_If you and your counterparts are agreeable, I’ll have another assignment ready for you within the hour_.”

"_If you would allow us a minor deviancy, Knight Gallia, I would prefer you allow us to personally escort the replacement shipment of Bacta back to the Temple. Thyferra insists we allow them to make reparations, though they decline any fault. A gesture of good will._"

"_I find that a most reasonable arrangement, Master Dooku_." Knight Gallia nods. "_You have my blessing_."

“_Very well_.” He bows, signing off.

Knight Gallia lowers her head into her hands. “_I don’t think I’m surprised, but I had hoped_.” She mutters.

Qui-Gon frowns. “I did not think the Stark Combine would be quite so thorough.” He comments, to test a suspicion. “Nor so discreet.”

Gallia looks up blankly, and then, almost indecipherably, both she and Master Windu glance towards Naasade. A bare flicker of a look, but conclusive enough.

“You do not believe our culprit lies in Thyferra.” He says blatantly, slightly accusatory, disapproving that such suspicions had not been shared. He struggles enough keeping up with the three of them in full debate, he does not need them to complicate his participation further by withholding information.

Master Naasade taps on the arm of his chair, looking thoughtful. “They well could be.” He remarks vaguely. “But the Order has it’s enemies aplenty, Master Jinn.”

Qui-Gon feels anger boil in his gut, because that had been no answer at all, but before he can say anything, Knight Gallia does.

“_I have assignments to receive and distribute, gentlemen.”_ She declares. “_I’ll reconvene with you later._” She signs off.

Mace sighs, nodding as her hologram blinks out. “_I haven’t seen the hide nor hair of an initiate in the last hour. I best go find out how much damage they’ve done_.”

Qui-Gon blinks in the sudden absence of blue light and the utter abrupt end to their conference, and Master Naasade hums thoughtfully, shifting in his chair to more fully face him. Qui-Gon rubs his eyes, which ache, and levels the younger man with a glower.

“Long, open lines of communication are not easily nor definitively secure from interception, Master Jinn.” The other Jedi states simply, and Qui-Gon – pauses, his argument halting on his tongue.

_What_?

Light reflects off the tiled floor, dancing around the corners of his vision, and he shakes his head slightly trying to ignore the distraction. Naasade must mistake his disgruntlement for confusion.

“This attack could, so easily, even without proof, be laid on the Stark Combine, or on dissatisfied investors on Thyferra. It would be convenient, even for us to do so. But there is a…not insignificant chance, that this is not as _petty_ a retaliation as it seems.”

Qui-Gon forces himself to focus, ignoring the slight chill of his skin, drawing his robe a little tighter as he takes in the quite serious look in Master Naasade’s stormy-blue eyes. “How do you mean? Who do you suspect?”

Naasade studies his face, and Qui-Gon balks at how very much he feels that he is being measured – and may not be found suitable.

“There are those of us,” Naasade remarks slowly, messing with the controls on his chair, and the lights in the room dim briefly, followed by a low hum just at the edge of his hearing – one of the privacy protocols being put into effect. “ who believe that the decline of the Jedi Order is no accident. That this pandemic, just as we are discovering how close to the brink that we are, just as we are enacting changes to avoid our fate, is far more malicious than mere coincidence.”

“You’re saying someone out there wants the Jedi Order diminished?” Qui-Gon states.

Naasade’s eyes crinkle a little, and he looks almost…pitying. As if Qui-Gon is being naïve. “That they want us _dead_, Master Jinn. Every last one of us.”

Qui-Gon shakes his head. “We have our enemies, that’s never been in dispute, but who would – are you not being a tad dramatic?” Qui-Gon asks, half trying to aim for a joke and half balking at the idea. _Or paranoid_, he wonders?

Naasade looks at him flatly, and sighs. “Qui-Gon – _Master Jinn_.” He corrects himself, and that’s not the first time he’s done so in the last several days, Qui-Gon notes. He ought to tell the other man to just go ahead and use his first name, but Naasade seemed to find something… important, about maintaining that formality between them. Which is strange, given that he addresses Qui-Gon’s first name with such _familiarity_ – and exasperation.

Naasade takes a breath, as if reigning himself in, and looks at Qui-Gon piercingly.

“Master Jinn, who _would_ want every single one of us dead, the Jedi Order broken and forgotten?” Naasade turns his question around, levelling it back at him like a challenge.

Qui-Gon lifts his gaze to the ceiling in exasperation ,and had he found rolling ones eyes to be any less a discourteous affection, he’d be tempted to do so. “Aside from the Sith-“ He drawls.

“Why?” Naasade cuts him off.

Qui-Gon back-tracks, frowning, and looks back down to the other man. “What?”

Naasade stares a him pointedly, gaze burning.

_Aside from the Sith_-

_Why_?

Why, _what_? Qui-Gon thinks irritably. Why _aside from_ _the_-

Oh.

_Oh_.

“You can’t be serious.” Qui-Gon huffs. “The Sith are _gone_. The Order of Shadows has spent the last thousand years ensuring this remained the case.” He adds pointedly, because Naasade had _been_ a Shadow, he would…….know.

“You _can’t_ be serious.” Qui-Gon repeats, croaking, throat suddenly dry. His heart is pounding, or his head is.

The Council Chamber seems stifling, all of a sudden, and Qui-Gon needs to _breathe_. He needs to clear his head. “I need to-“ He shoves himself to his feet, making for the door. “-meditate on-“ The rooms wavers, a sharp pain crawling through his skull as he abruptly loses color, and then his balance, and-

“Oh dear.” He hears, as he thinks he falls over.

~*~

“ – are supposed to report to the Halls as soon as symptoms begin to escalate!” the healer scolds sharply. “One would think you might notice the development!”

“I thought he was just being recalcitrant and contrary.” Ben remarks defensively, because he was _not_ responsible for that man, not this time around. “He’s Qui-Gon Jinn.” He adds, in explanation. Recalcitrant and contrary were tenets of his character. “Shouldn’t he be the one receiving this lecture?”

“He’s asleep!” They snap, fixing Ben with one last flat, warning look, before departing the room.

Ben sighs, sinking down into the chair beside the unconscious mans bio-bed, thinking that that – really could have gone better. The Healer wasn’t wrong – he _should_ have noticed, but in the Council Chamber, well, it was a bit difficult to parse stress from illness. And he’d given Qui-Gon every reason to be stressed.

“Well, Master,” He mutters below his breath with a sigh. “We’ve certainly outdone ourselves this time.”

“Hm?” Qui-Gon groans slightly, dragging a hand up over his face to cover his eyes.

“The lights are down.” Ben remarks, having jolted to realize the man was awake, if not entirely coherent. _Sloppy, Ben_. He scolds himself. _Unacceptable_.

He was getting too used to his surroundings, too at ease. He couldn’t keep letting details like that slip past him.

“And your point is?” Qui-Gon grumbles irritably, still pressing against his eyes.

“You could have mentioned the headache.”

“Oh,” Qui-Gon scoffs snidely. “You don’t say. You could have mentioned the _Sith_.”

“Because you were _so_ _ready_ to believe me.” Ben retorts sharply, crossing his arms. “I hardly need half this Temple believing I am _delusional_ on top of everything else.”

They already knew he was TSR, and a great many of them still held their (quiet, unspoken, but told in the looks they gave him) suspicions that he was borderline Dark. He didn’t need it getting about that he suffered from paranoia, or worse, was outright _insane_.

“I am hardly a gossip.” Qui-Gon snipes.

Ben lifts his brows and gives the other man a _look_. Master Qui-Gon Jinn, that was an outright_ lie_.

Qui-Gon colors slightly, though that may be his budding fever. The man looks away, and so does Ben, wrestling his spiking emotions back under control.

Qui-Gon sighs heavily, noisily, and sits up.

“Don’t-“ Ben turns back, lurching in concern, but Qui-Gon just gives him a short look and settles himself back against the pillows and headboard, ice-blue eyes flashing warningly. The man had his pride and deserved his dignity, after all.

When he’s satisfied, he stares at the far wall for a minute, contemplative, before he turns to Ben, who waits him out with familiar patience. Qui-Gon often needed a moment to move past his initial reactionary volley and actually consider what he wanted to say next, a habit Ben, as a padawan, had not realized his master had to _learn_, to overcome a conditioning that came from having to always be a word behind his own, often condescending Master.

Ben and Qui-Gon had both been temper-prone individuals, and argued hotly. Qui-Gon’s arguments with his master, he had suspected in the later years, had been far more personal and far more cutting, less easily forgiven, certainly less easily forgotten.

_We do not always pick up the best of our masters_ _teachings_, Ben thinks ruefully. _And they do not always make the best of us_.

“Are they truly-“ Qui-gon starts, haltingly. “- you –“ He pauses again. “ – is that what happened to your padawan? The one who…” He trails off, and Ben had braced himself for something bad. Trust Qui-Gon to rush right past something bad and dig into the _worst_.

Ben doesn’t flinch, just bears the wound. “We were closer to them than we realized. And they just…_played_ with us. My padawan was… he was sabotaged from the start. I should have seen what was happening, should have questioned it, but… I failed.”

“Was that – is Xan-“ Qui-Gon can’t quite voice it, voice thick with emotion, with struggle.

“Xan Fell of his own making, and that was just…a Fall. That does not make a Sith.” Ben says sorrily. “But now? I don’t know.”

Qui-Gon nods, looking away, and Ben can feel him trying to push away his pain, his grief.

“Stop.” Ben says, offering consolation like a balm in the form, and acceptance. “I know- I spoke harshly, to you. Before. Xanatos’ Fall was his own choice, and you _have_ to stop blaming yourself for it. But I should also have told you that it’s alright, Qui-Gon. It’s alright to grieve him. You don’t have to be _angry_ at yourself for grieving him. You don’t have to feel guilty for loving him. But you must _let him go_.”

“Was that so easy for you?” Qui-Gon mutters bitterly.

Ben lets out a soft, bitter puff of air himself. “I never claimed to have done it, Master Jinn. To even be capable of doing it.” Ben admits. “But it’s…easier for me. All I have of my padawan is his memory, and yours is still out there. But the lesson remains.”

Qui-Gon swallows, nodding in a small, tight motion.

“I miss him.” Qui-Gon confesses. “And then I think it is _wrong_ to miss him. And Sian… she is so _different_, and so bright, and I still look at her and see _him_, as he was before. And then I remember what became of him, and I can’t – get out of my own thoughts. She deserves better.”

“Then be better, Qui-Gon.”

“I’m –“

“Trying. The word you’re looking for is ‘trying’.” Ben says wryly.

“There is no try.” Qui-Gon mutters. “Do or do not.”

“There is no want. There is no need.” Ben counters. “There is only what must be. Trying is what we _must_ do, and sometimes, it is all we _can_ do.”

Qui-Gon sighs. “I’m lucky she is patient. I can tell she…manages me, at times. That she looks at me and can tell I’m not looking at her.”

And Ben can tell he feels guilty for that too. Had Qui-Gon felt so guilty during Ben’s apprenticeship? As a youngling, Ben had mostly noticed his master’s distant nature, and his criticism, more than anything else. And he knows what look Qui-Gon is referring to – and that look had terrified Ben when he was younger, still certain he could be cast aside for the simplest flaw, and angered him when he was older, because he didn’t understand why his master couldn’t just see _him_, and not the shadow of a fallen jedi. Ben had felt like he never quite measured up to Qui-Gon’s expectations, to what Qui-Gon _truly_ wanted from a padawan.

But Sian is not Ben.

“She is patient, and she is brave, and she needs you more than you realize, Qui-Gon. No matter how strong she may seem.” Ben says.

“Tahl says the same thing.” Qui-Gon admits sheepishly.

“Tahl is very wise.” Ben nods, with a quirk to his lips.

Qui-Gon hums, and lifts his hands again, trying to press back his migraine. “I need to meditate.” Qui-Gon mutters.

Ben takes his cue. “I’ll leave you to it. I’ve certainly dropped enough in your lap.”

“Wait.” Qui-Gon bids him, lowering his hands to peer at Ben in a way that makes him uncomfortable, his gaze inscrutable. “Why is it,” he asks carefully, “ that you can be so understanding and yet so begrudging of me in turns?”

Ben closes his eyes, feeling slightly caught out, and lowers himself back into his seat. “Ah.”

“Ah.” Qui-Gon mirrors.

Ben takes a breath, considering his options for a moment, and gives in. He is making an attempt with Mace, he can make an attempt here as well. Let go. Move _on_. “I have told you before that you remind me greatly of my master.” Ben says hesitantly, trying to gauge how much he ought to let slip. “Perhaps too much. You could say I project, even though you – you are not the man I sometimes think you are.” Qui-Gon’s expression sours, and Ben corrects himself. “That’s a good thing.” He says. “I perhaps hold you too much accountable for things… you have _not_ done.” Ben admits, that recognition perhaps truly sinking in for the first time. “Things I am still… upset with my master for.”

Qui-Gon, _this_ Qui-Gon, has not done those things Ben so deeply blames him for, nor regrets so much. _I’ll have to take more care to remember that_, he thinks. _Or remember less_, he considers. Perhaps it would be easier, to bury and blur his memories of Qui-Gon, though he _knows_ Healer Kala would not approve. Sometimes, however, sometimes making himself forget is the only way he can keep himself sane.

“Are we so alike?” Qui-Gon inquires, face etched with compassionate understanding, and a little discomfort.

Ben offers a rueful, sideways smile. “Like you would not believe, Master Jinn.”

“Perhaps…” The other man proposes. “You could call me Qui-Gon.”


	27. Chapter 27

“Voka, wake up.”

The Chief Healer of the Halls of Healing groans, flicks a lekku, and rolls over, grumbling.

A sigh.

“Healer Che.”

She twitches, and forces her eyes open. “What?” She asks, trying not to be grudging.

“The RMCC lab just got back to us. They need some more samples for testing, but they think we’ve got the start of a viable serum.” Healer Ni Hiella reports, sitting down on the edge of Vokara’s cot. “Not a vaccine yet, but hopefully a treatment. They have some young independent contractor on hand who produces miraculous results when push comes to shove. Give it a couple weeks and we may be in the clear.”

“If this works, I’d like to meet them.” Vokara comments

“Her.” Ni Hiella corrects, glancing at the datapad she had in hand. “Looks like a…Doctor Zan Arbor.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” the twi’lek nods, pushing up from her cot. “I take it you have the list?”

“Yes, but they’d like to speak with you directly concerning how testing is to proceed.” The zeltron informs her. “Their greatest concern is how effective treatment will be at various stages of the virus. We’ve…neglected to tell them that we have a remedy for delayed intervention.”

Vokara pauses and gives her friend a look, understanding that the careful sanitization of information was an art – but not one Ni Hiella need waste on _her_.

“That is the decision of the Council.” Vokara states.

“And one I agree with.” Ni Hiella nods. “Padawan Vos is performing above and beyond, and he does not deserve outside scrutiny for his actions, nor for his own condition. I was just reminding _you_.”

“Consider me reminded.” Vokara says dryly, holding out a hand to take the datapad once she’s slipped back into the hazard suit, delaying in donning the laser hood for now. She’d rather not put it on until just before she exited the Temple. “I’ll deal with it. How is he?”

“Last I left him, he was passed out on a bench outside Initiate Secura’s isolation room.”

~*~

Tap.

Tap tap tap.

Tap. _Tap_.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-taptaptaptap-

Quinlan was _not_ dreaming of rain. He shifts, his entire body feeling weighted, like the planet had too much gravity, his arm numb from being tucked under his head, his leg aching as he stretches, cramped from the way he’d ended up turned against the wall.

He blinks, and discovers the transparisteel wall is not more transparent than steel, and he can see Aayla standing on a receptacle, looming over him on the other side of the viewing window, tapping on the wall.

She’s still more grey than blue, with bruised rings under her eyes, her lekku limp and despondant. She presses her forehead against the transparisteel, looking down at him and shivering – not with fever, but with the effort of standing up.

He’d – he’d done a number on her, all right. He’d really _hurt_ her.

_And it felt good_. A nasty little voice inside reminds him viciously. Quinlan swallows, biting his cheek, because he’d rather hurt himself than hurt her, and tells that voice to get sucked down a sarlacc pit.

Quinlan sits up slowly, carefully, hoping not to startle her, even with the pane between them, separating them. Keeping her safe.

She watches him, big hazel-green eyes bloodshot and cautious, her nostrils flaring as she breathes too fast. Quick, rapid breaths, like a quick, rapid heartbeat, like some fragile little bird.

Aayla wasn’t a little bird. She wasn’t all that fragile.

But he could still _break_ her.

“Aayla.” Quinlan utters, shaping the word more than saying it. “I’m so sorry.”

She looks down at him, and he can feel that she’s scared, that she’s angry, that she’s in pain, and most of him wants to dig into those feelings, make them raw, make them all-consuming, and he is held in check only by the barest thread of control. Because breaking Aayla Secura is the line.

Not the one he swears he will not cross- he _knows_ now that he can’t make that promise – but the one he’ll kill himself for crossing. He swears, and he swears it down to his marrow and to his connection with the Force. If he breaks her – he’ll use all that power, all those whispering, wanting urges, and he’ll destroy himself.

And if Quinlan crossed that line, if he couldn’t, after that, follow through, if he loses his force-forsaken mind – well, Ben would know what to do then.

Or Obi-Wan.

Trusting them with his life was easy, wasn’t worth much. He’d learned that trusting someone with the life of the person you cared for most in all the galaxy – that was different, harder, less certain. But he’d trust them with that too, and he is so pathetically _relieved_ that he can.

And this is the hardest thing: acknowledging now that he can’t trust himself with her.

He’d saved her life, but he could so easily have killed her. He _almost_ did.

_I have to give her up_.

He’d been so certain he would overcome, that he would get better, that she’d be his Padawan. But it’s not safe.

Healer Ni Hiella was right – better was a relative term, and in spite of what the Temple hoped, Quinlan wasn’t going to be _cured_ of this. Not now, when he has just learned so much about what he can do that no one else could.

But it isn’t _safe_.

He can barely control himself, and until he can – he has to let her go. Stop clinging to idea that this isn’t who and what he is now. Accept his fate.

Learn how to make something of it.

Aayla crouches down on the receptacle she’s standing on, putting herself almost on eyelevel with him, and Quinlan can see the gleaming reflection of the yellow in his eyes on the pane. He flashes a smile, and Aayla flinches back, almost teetering off her perch, which wobbles.

She glares at him, and knocks on the glass.

Quinlan knocks back.

‘_I’m not scared of you_.’ She insists, pushing the thought at him and every tremor of it screeching _lie-lie-lie_.

She is, Quinlan thinks. But for Aayla, being scared was the hard part. Everything after that was so, so much easier.

‘_Sure_.’ Quinlan replies. ‘_But I am_.’

~*~

Obi-Wan comes back from narrating storytime to younglings and elders, a couple of datapads for his own private reading tucked under his arm, craving a hot cup of tea, to find bolts of cloth strewn across the living area.

“Boots off, padawan. I don’t want you treading on anything.” His master mumbles, a few pins in between his lips, and Obi-Wan recognizes the bolts of cloth right away, but it doesn’t click until –

“Are those my shirts? Master, I can take care of that!” Obi-Wan objects.

His master lifts a brow at him, hair pulled back in a loose tie, and takes the pins from his mouth so he can speak clearly. “There is no one in the Store Room, the Quartermaster is ill, and none of his staff can enter the temple. Furthermore, it’s about time we changed your style of tabbards now that you’re closer to grown, and I’d rather be careful when it comes to the concordian silk. The textile press isn’t exactly made for anything fancy. I’m perfectly capable of sewing by hand.”

So was Obi-Wan, technically, but his stitches were serviceable, not _nice_.

“It could have waited.” Obi-Wan mumbles.

“I can practically hear your bones growing.” His master retorts amusedly.

“With my armor on you can’t even tell the hems are too short.”

“Perhaps others can’t, but I _can_ tell your clothing is restrictive under your armor.” Master Ben parries his argument cannily. “And that won’t suit. Now quit arguing with me and put on a pot of tea, would you?”

Obi-Wan offers up an apologetic smile – he is grateful, really, that his amster cares so much – and heads into the kitchen, setting his datapads down on the counter.

“Are you working on your studies?”

“No.” Obi-Wan replies. “I’ve already gone through my coursework.”

With actual classes cancelled, most padawans had, moving through the remaining work at their own pace to get ahead on what they could and earn more free time. Only to discover that perhaps too much free time was a little _boring_. Obi-Wan had noticed a lot of unsupervised sparring and a lot of agitated, grudging meditation when even _that_ grew old.

He envied his friends for being out with the Corps. At least they had something to _accomplish_ and keep them busy. When Obi-Wan couldn’t find something else to do, he ended up staring at a pile of sand, ever more certain his master had lied to him about how this exercise was supposed to work.

“What’s that then?”

Obi-Wan sets the kettle to boil. “Oh, um. Historical reports. On some of the old Temples?”

Master Ben frowns. “You aren’t looking into the decline again, are you? You’ve certainly done enough on that front, padawan.”

“No.” Obi-Wan shakes his head. “I just, I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Some of the visiting padawans were telling me about their temples, and, well, I actually did like reading about the other Temples. Not – not what happened to us, so much, but… the places they rose from, the differing philosophies and practices. I find it interesting.”

His master’s face softens. “Far be it from me to curb such an interest.” He remarks.

The kettle whistles, and Obi-Wan puts together a couple of cups for them, rubbing his wrist absently as it steeps. Some days he doesn’t notice the old injury at all, but other days… it still aches, and he’s noticed that he loses feeling across his palm and pinky finger when it does.

A thought occurs to him.

“Master, what are you interests?” He asks.

“The safety and preservation of the Jedi Order.” His master replies dryly. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Obi-Wan shoots him a dirty look, carrying out his tea cup, treading carefully between the reams of cloth.

“I have little time for hobbies.” His master admits, offering a small, rueful shrug.

“Ever?” Obi-Wan asks incredulously. “In your whole _life_?”

“I’d say at least since I was thirteen.”

_That is….sad_, Obi-Wan thinks, handing Master Ben his teacup and taking a sip of his own, laced with gimmer.

“I read the memo from the Healers too, you know.” Obi-Wan points out. “We’ve certainly got time now.”

Their current estimate was that it would take at least two weeks for the RMCC to develop and distribute treatment if their current tests worked out, and up to four months after that for that treatment to completely eradicate the virus in their systems – perhaps longer, for carriers like Master Ben and Obi-Wan, who had the most insulated strain of the virus.

“Fortunately for you.” His master murmurs lightly.

Obi-Wan’s brow furrows. “For me? Why? What have I done?”

His master’s eyes dance, and he quirks up a brow in a look that Obi-Wan doesn’t trust. He reaches over to the couch and plucks his datapad out from under one of Anakin’s brightly colored beaded cushions. He hands it to his padawan, who takes it skeptically.

The first thing Obi-Wan sees is his master’s elegantly sprawled signature, and he has to reload the file to see what it actually is.

_ISSUANCE FOR THE PROMOTION OF (ONE) [SUBJECT]:_ OBI-WAN KENOBI

_TO THE LEVEL OF_: SENIOR PADAWAN

_STATUS_: APPROVED.

_By the authority of the High Council of the Jedi Order and in accordance with _-

“Master Windu’s been attempting to put that through for quite some, but Madame Nu kept rejecting it from the archive, as several amendments and a special dispensation where required in your case. Protocol and fine print, you understand. She likes things to be to the letter of regulation.” His master says, oblivious to the fact that Obi-Wan’s brain has just short-circuited, fixed on the datapad and not seeing a thing. “It’s not without addendums, Obi-Wan. The rank is yours, but the authority _isn’t_ until you’ve passed comprehension exams for the necessary required courses. You’ve been assigned sponsorship tutors to help you, but you’re being allowed to take the courses as self-study in light of our current situation. Ideally, you’ll have those certificates in hand within six months.”

Senior Padawan.

_Senior_ Padawan.

In just _three_ years.

Most padawans didn’t make Senior Padawan until their fifth or _sixth_ year of apprenticeship.

“Obi-Wan?”

Senior Padawan.

“…_Obi-Wan_?”

Obi-Wan blinks, and looks up, and it clicks. “Six months? How _many_ courses?” He sputters, with a flash of anxious dread.

“Enough to keep you busy.” Master Ben smiles teasingly.

“_Master_.” Obi-Wan complains, but can’t help the grin splitting his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author:  
Got to admit, you all have dropped some unexpected reactions and made me rethink a few things. Not bad.
> 
> So, coming up next: A placeholder is going to appear between this story and the next. Why? Because i'm gonna give you guys a little extra on Thanksgiving/ Indigenous Peoples Day because holidays are stressful and I love you. I read every single comment (though I don't always have the time/energy/words to reply) and I get through my day because I have a massive amount of positive support from this, so this is my kudos to all of you.  
The next story will start posting before Thanksgiving/ Indigenous Peoples Day, so make sure to check back on the 28th (I'm not sure how you all have my works bookmarked or saved, so I don't know where or how you get your alerts.)   
For those of you not in this country, congrats, and have a little extra anyways!


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